Rusty Mansell's Georgia Game of the Week: Valdosta at Carrollton
The game of the week in the state of Georgia this week is between two teams with as much history as any high school program in the Peach State. Valdosta and Carrollton are both tradition-rich teams with massive community support and that will be on display Friday night.
Valdosta out of Region 1-6A, is facing an unbeaten Carrollton team. It’ll be broadcast on Peachtree Sports Network starting at 7:30 pm., and digitally on Atlanta News First, ZEAM and the National Federation of High Schools Network. Carrollton is ranked 2nd in the state of Georgia while Valdosta is ranked 17th according to the On3 Massey Ratings. This a rematch of the a second-round playoff game from 2023 in which Carrollton won 45-28.
The On3 Massey Ratings — which were officially used during the BCS era and have generated college and high school sports team rankings since 1995 — rank sports teams by analyzing game outcomes, strength of schedule and margin of victory.
Tale of the Tape…
Valdosta is led by Georgia commit Todd Robinson in the 2025 class. He passed for a career-high last week of 414 yards and five touchdowns in a 35-27 win over Walton last week. The do-it-all athlete has been battling an ankle injury of late but has been able to play through it. We expect him to be full go at Trojan Stadium on Saturday.
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Carrollton is led by brand-new Colorado quarterback commit Julian Lewis. He has thrown for 2,842 yards and 40 touchdowns while completing 77.8 percent of his passes this season. Lewis made national news on Thursday when he committed to Colorado on The Pat McAfee Show. He was later featured in the flagship SportsCenter edition, hosted by Scott Van Pelt, later that evening.
This game isn’t short on prospects and many of them are on the Carrollton sideline. That includes re-classified safety Zelus Hicks, who is committed to Texas. Like Lewis, Hicks is in just his third season of high school ball but will be graduating high school a year early. Instead of joining their programs in 2026, they’ll be there in 2025.