Ron Seibel: Middle Georgia teams look to make Week 12 count

Here we are, Week 12 of the high school football season. The final week before the playoffs begin in the GHSA.

Just one question: Where in the world have the past three months gone?

For some, this marks the final week of a career filled with the hard work necessary to be a high school football players. To those who will hang up the helmet for the final time, as well as to those coaches -- like Rutland head coach George Collins -- who will be hanging up the whistle, we offer a salute.

For others, this marks a decisive weekend, a time in which playoff fortunes will be decided. Win and in? Win and pray for help? Play for better seeding? All are things that will come into play as the regular season closes.

For the four Middle Georgia teams in Class AAAAA, the question of making the playoffs is settled. All four are in. But seeding is an open question, starting with Thursday night's Jones County-Warner Robins game and continuing into Friday's big Northside-Houston County showdown. The difference between winning and losing means either playing at home next week or a long drive down to the Georgia coast.

It's also a busy week for Bibb County's public schools, where four of the six teams -- Central, Howard, Northeast and Westside -- still entertain postseason hopes, and a fifth team -- Southwest -- entertains thoughts of playing the role of spoiler.

Westside and Northeast make the playoffs with wins, while Central and Howard both need help. And the scenarios are interesting.

A playoff mainstay in Middle Georgia, Westside is in with a victory over Southwest. But the Seminoles have some injury issues to deal with -- namely quarterback Savion Knowlton, who missed last week's Peach County game with a concussion -- and the Patriots have shown some flashes of talent this season despite a 3-6 record. Westside moved the ball well last week in a swinging gate formation run by Gerimie Mitchell, but there's still just enough of a question mark here to make things a bit interesting.

Central needs to beat Kendrick on Friday afternoon, then hope for Southwest to upset Westside or for Jordan to knock off Spencer in the second half of the doubleheader the Chargers are playing in at Kinnett Stadium in Columbus. A Central win gives the Chargers their first winning record in a decade, but the playoffs are looking like a longshot for a senior-laden team that put forth a strong effort this season.

Howard, which reached the six-win mark for the first time in program history last week, should be able to make it seven wins when it faces Baldwin on Friday. But that alone won't be enough to make the playoffs, as the Huskies will need Upson-Lee to defeat Veterans to make the postseason.

Northeast, meanwhile, didn't record its first win of the season until last week. But the Raiders (1-8) find themselves in a win-and-in situation when they host a team with the same record, Monticello.

While the situation of having two 1-8 teams battling for a playoff spot exposes the inherent downside of having a certain number of automatic playoff berths from each region, especially when comparing Northeast's situation to that of Central (5-4) and Howard (6-3), it does give the Raiders something to play for in what has been a difficult season. Just being in position to make the playoffs gives Northeast's younger players an opportunity to pick up skills they can take into next season, and winning that playoff spot surely would give the program a moral boost.

Let's not also forget two games of interest in Class A: Aquinas at Stratford for the Region 7-A title and Hancock Central at FPD in a battle of teams needing wins to make the playoffs on power rating points.

All of this makes for an intriguing Friday night of football ... the way the final Friday night of the regular season should be.

Contact Ron Seibel at 744-4222 or rseibel@macon.com

This story was originally published November 5, 2015 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Ron Seibel: Middle Georgia teams look to make Week 12 count ."