As much of the South continues to dig out from the damage of Hurricane Helene, Georgia's high school governing body announced Tuesday it was changing the end date for the football regular season.
The Georgia High School Association added a week to the end of the football regular season. The final week of the play is now Nov. 8 and that will be used to make up games that could not be played due to Helene.
The semifinals and championship dates have not changed. The semifinals are slated for Dec. 6 with the finals Dec. 16-18 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
New football scheduleNov. 8 — New regular season final week, hurricane make-up games
Nov. 15-16 — First round of playoffs
Nov. 22 — Second round of playoffs
Nov. 29 — Playoff quarterfinals
Dec. 6 — Playoff semifinals
Dec. 16-18 — State finals
The Georgia High School Association announced Tuesday it is extending the regular season to Nov. 8 in order to accommodate schools that had to postpone games because of Hurricane Helene. The semifinals and finals remain unchanged. (Photo: Ed Turlington)
Nov. 8 was initially slated to be the opening round of playoff action but will be pushed back to the weekend of Nov 15-16. A bye week scheduled for Nov. 29 will be replaced by quarterfinal action, the GHSA said.
Schools that completed games without schedule interruptions and are advancing to the postseason will have an open week before the first round of the playoffs. If a school was affected by two weeks of cancellations it may have to double up and play a Thursday, Tuesday and Saturday sequence in order to complete its schedule. The GHSA will work with regions in determining those scenarios.
The GHSA is working on other fall sport schedule changes and will announce those later this week.
