By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          Rankings have indicated all year that Northeast was one of the top teams in the state.

          For last week, according to the Georgia High School Football Daily, the Raiders were the top team in the state.

          The state’s prime high school football-only website honors a team and players each week, and picked the Raiders after their 46-14 win over Fitzgerald before an overflow crowd at Thompson Stadium.

          It added to the school record for wins, and put a Bibb County public school in the state championship game for the first time since Central won it all in 1975.

          Northeast was honored as the top team back in 2020 when the Raiders picked up their first win over a top-5 team with a 37-34 win over No. 4 Bleckley County. The Raiders are the only county school to win the honor

          Jeff Gable from the website and Willis Rainey from BSN Sports were the presenters.

          “During the regular season, there’s over 400 high schools that play high school football in Georgia,” Gable said. “That’s a lot of games to go through, so they really have a hard time figuring out the best team of the week.”

          While there are fewer games to pick from in the playoffs, there are still scores of quality performances.

Column: Traffic. Lines to get in. Standing room only. Banners, chants. From Macon & beyond. For a Bibb County high school football game? In December? A night to remember at Thompson Stadium

After hearing about Bibb County history, Northeast made its own with a convincing-in-all-phases semifinal win over perennial contender Fitzgerald in front of huge crowd; Dublin falls

GHSA semifinals: Toombs County at Dublin, Fitzgerald at Northeast - Scouting reports, predictions

Column: This is a huge weekend for football in Macon and Bibb County. Will Macon and Bibb County show up for it?

Humility, confidence, persistence, curiosity,  and instinct have put Northeast star running back and honor student Nick Woodford on an elite level

          “They chose you guys, Northeast, to be the team of the week because of your victory over Fitzgerald last week that not only put your school in the state finals for the first time, but you continue to add onto your school record for wins in a season,” he said. “You’ve had your school here at Northeast for 55 years, and this is the first football team that’s ever made it to the state championship round.”

          Head coach Jeremy Wiggins held the plaque and reminded his team before it headed out to practice what it took to get to this point.

          “This is just another steppingstone, just another (honor) to add to our tool box,” Wiggins said. “I always talk to y’all about being good teammates, I always talk to y’all about talk about living right and doing the right things, and you do right, good things going to come to you in the right way.

“This is another big thing for us, let’s enjoy it. But in a few minutes, we got to go to work.”