A breakdown of Class 5A, 6A playoff scenarios

The Region 4-AAAAAA title will be at stake when McEachern and Hillgrove wrap up their regular seasons on Friday night. Hillgrove, which sits one game behind 5-0 McEachern at 4-1 in the region, has home-field advantage. Colquitt County, the only undefeated team in the highest classification, secured the Region 1 championship by taking care of Tift County last week.

Tucker has clinched the Region 2 title, Alpharetta has sealed the deal in Region 6 and Westlake assured itself of the top seed out of Region 3 by defeating South Cobb last Saturday. Alpharetta will host Cherokee in the first round of the state playoffs. North Gwinnett will triumph in Region 7 if it beats Mountain View this week. Alpharetta’s title means former offensive coordinator Jacob Nichols will likely be the lone first-year head coach to lift a region winner’s trophy in Class AAAAAA this year.

There are four head-to-head showdowns for Class AAAAA region titles this week. Both Houston County and Northside-Warner Robins are 7-1 in the region and one game up on both Jones County and Warner Robins. That means the regular-season finale between Houston County which is playing at home and Northside-Warner Robins is for the No. 1 seed.

The other three contests with titles at stake are official championship games between sub-region winners. Drew is visiting Stockbridge in Region 4, Stephenson is making the trip to Creekside in Region 6 and Kell is hosting Dalton for the top spot in Region 7. Both Drew (over Mundy’s Mill) and Stockbridge (over Dutchtown) won their respective sub-regions based on head-to-head tiebreakers. Creekside came out on top of a three-way tie in its sub-region with Carver-Atlanta and Mays by sporting a superior record against Class AAAAA competition.

Harris County, Ware County, Allatoona and Lanier have already locked up region titles. Lanier won its first-ever region title by beating Region 8 foe Winder-Barrow last week. The Longhorns got two rushing touchdowns from Tario Fuller and a game-clinching interception return for a touchdown by Jeremy Taylor.