THOMASTON — The bottom half of the Georgia High School Association football playoffs will be the home team in the upcoming semifinal round after the GHSA held its coin flip.
Per GHSA by-law 4.39, GHSA Executive Director Robin Hines conducted a “universal” coin toss on Tuesday to determine which part of the bracket would be “home” in the Class 2A through 7A SEMIFINALS if the two competing teams are equal seeds AND both school meet the GHSA requirements for hosting a semifinal contest (see page 73 of the 2018-19 GHSA Constitution).
The universal coin toss came up “tails” meaning that the team in the BOTTOM half of the official GHSA playoff bracket will be the designated home team in the semifinal round in cases where equal seeds meet AND both schools qualify to host a semifinal playoff contest.
Of the three northeast Georgia area teams still alive -- Buford in Class 5A, Rabun County in Class 2A, and Commerce in Class A Public -- only Rabun County, the No. 1 seed from Region 8-2A, will be affected. The Wildcats are on the upper half of the bracket. If they get past Fitzgerald on Friday in the quarterfinals, they will meet the winner of the Dublin/Heard County matchup. Both of those teams also are No. 1 seeds and on the bottom half.
Buford is the No. 1 seed from Region 8-5A but their possible semifinal opponents would be Region 4-5A No. 2 seed Stockbridge or Region 7-5A No. 3 seed Carrollton and the Wolves would play host no matter the outcome of that game.
Class A Public does not use region seedings, instead using power rankings (1 to 24) to determine its playoff brackets and seedings.
