Congratulations to us all: We’ve made it to Week 0 of the college football season. The best time of year is upon us — and this season should be unlike any other.
But it’s not just college football set to take center stage.
High school football begins in earnest this week with some intriguing storylines and terrific national matchups.
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Consider this your high school primer. Here’s what we’ll be watching.
National matchups coming this week
In addition to checking out Florida State–Georgia Tech in Dublin on Saturday, mark your calendars for several big-time high school games. This week is loaded.
It starts Thursday night when Grayson (Ga.) High visits Alabaster (Ala.) Thompson. Grayson has the top player in Georgia in the Class of 2026 anchoring its defense in five-star linebacker Tyler Atkinson. Thompson, meanwhile, has two top-100 defenders in Auburn commits Anquon Fegans (a safety) and Jared Smith (a defensive end). Grayson made it to the Class 7A semifinals a season ago. Thompson has been to six consecutive Class 7A state title games, winning four of them. Kickoff is set for 8 p.m. (ET) on ESPN2.
Friday, Milton (Ga.) High — the team that beat Grayson in the semifinals last season and won the state championship — will hit the road to play American Heritage in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as part of the Broward County National Football Showcase.
Milton has four top-250 prospects: Florida State wide receiver commit CJ Wiley, Georgia tight end commit Ethan Barbour, Clemson offensive tackle commit Brayden Jacobs and Miami quarterback commit Luke Nickel. American Heritage is led by a trio of exciting 2026 prospects, including the No. 2 quarterback recruit in the class, five-star Texas commit Dia Bell. He is joined by four-star wide receivers Brandon Bennett and Malachi Toney, a Miami commit. Four-star running back Byron Louis and four-star Florida State safety commit Gregory Xavier Thomas are the team’s top prospects in the Class of 2025. It should be fun to watch Thomas compete against his fellow FSU commit, Wiley. ESPN will broadcast the game at 7 p.m. (ET).
Moving into Saturday, get ready for a blockbuster day, as the Broward County National Football Showcase continues. Las Vegas Bishop Gorman plays Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) St. Thomas Aquinas at 4 p.m. (ET) on ESPN. Southern California power St. John Bosco then plays Hollywood (Fla.) Chaminade-Madonna Prep at 8 p.m. (ET) on ESPN2. Bishop Gorman was ranked as the top team in the nation a season ago. St. Thomas Aquinas came in at No. 9 while Chaminade-Madonna and St. John Bosco finished No. 2 and No. 6, respectively.
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This year, Bishop Gorman is ranked No. 2, with Bosco at No. 4, Chaminade-Madonna at No. 9 and St. Thomas Aquinas at No. 11. That’s four deep teams, featuring two elite matchups with plenty of blue-chip talent.
And last but not least, at 1 p.m. (ET) Sunday on ESPN, Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School — the rural boarding school turned contender in Georgia high school football — travels to Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tenn. Baylor’s Cameron Sparks, a four-star athlete and the nation’s No. 181 prospect, will be the highest-ranked player on the field.
Mater Dei hits the ground running
How about Mater Dei’s opening matchups?
The Monarchs from Santa Ana, Calif., enter the season as the top-ranked team nationally and will be tested early.
Mater Dei opens its season Thursday against Centennial (Calif.) High in what could be a matchup of the two best teams in California, depending on the health of Centennial quarterback Husan Longstreet. The commit is day to day, per a local report, but is the top quarterback in California and the nation’s No. 35 prospect overall. On Sept. 6, after an early bye week, the Monarchs play Bishop Gorman, the second-ranked team in the nation. Oh, and in the meantime, Mater Dei will usher in its new quarterback.
Elijah Brown, a former four-star recruit who is a freshman at Stanford, graduated as the only quarterback in Mater Dei history to win two state championships. He went 42-2 as the starter and threw for 8,670 yards and 107 touchdowns. Stepping into his shoes will be three-star Washington commit Dash Beierly. Beierly transferred to Mater Dei from Chaparral High School in Temecula, Calif., and will lean heavily on his star-studded supporting cast.
Five-star Ohio State wide receiver commit Chris Henry Jr. is the top prospect in the Class of 2026. Four-star 2025 running back Jordon Davison is committed to Oregon and four-star wide receiver Marcus Harris is committed to Oklahoma. Mater Dei’s defense is stacked with blue-chip prospects as well, including Alabama cornerback commit Chuck McDonald, Penn State cornerback commit Daryus Dixson, Oregon edge commit Nasir Wyatt and Alabama linebacker commit Abduall Sanders Jr. But it will be fun to see how the offense performs in the post-Brown era, especially with Beierly having transferred in just for his senior season.
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Don’t sleep on Kansas
Kansas might not be the typical recruiting hotbed, but don’t sleep on the Sunflower State when it comes to the Class of 2025. Two of the most fascinating prospects in this cycle hail from Kansas and will be must-see recruits, albeit for different reasons.
Five-star offensive tackle Andrew Babalola is the nation’s No. 25 prospect and No. 4 offensive tackle. He is expected to announce his decision soon after taking official visits to Michigan, Stanford, Oklahoma, Auburn and Missouri. If Stanford were to pull this off and land him, Babalola would be the Cardinal’s first five-star prospect since the Class of 2017.
Five-star tight end Linkon Cure is another star to watch. Cure committed to Kansas State in July and would be the Wildcats’ first five-star signee of the modern era. At 6 feet 6, 220 pounds, Cure has the size to create mismatches downfield. He also has great speed, having run the 100-meter dash in 11.05 seconds in May for his Goodland High School track team. Cure caught 42 passes for 946 yards and 14 touchdowns a season ago, according to his 247Sports bio. What a duo he and Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson will make.
Where will Julian Lewis end up?
The action kicked off last week when Carrollton (Ga.) High, ranked No. 12 by MaxPreps, traveled about an hour east to take on Woodward Academy in College Park on Friday night for a showdown televised on ESPN2. Carrollton will be a team to watch this season, as the Trojans are coached by Joey King — Trevor Lawrence’s prep coach — and are quarterbacked by five-star Julian Lewis, the No. 4 quarterback recruit in the Class of 2025.
Carrollton beat Woodward 24-14, with Lewis going 9-of-15 for 126 yards and three touchdowns with an interception on a rainy night in Georgia.
Julian Lewis to Ryan Mosley for Another @Carrollton_High TOUCHDOWN❕✌🏼
Trojans Lead Woodward Academy 21-7
🎥 @On3USC @ryanMosley0 @JuJuLewis10 pic.twitter.com/Qesq1hEHii
— Scott Schrader (@SSchraderOn3) August 17, 2024
Perhaps most notably, Lewis addressed his recruitment in an interview with ESPN. The nation’s No. 16 prospect, Lewis reclassified from the Class of 2026 to the Class of 2025 and has been committed to USC and Lincoln Riley since August 2023. But he took official visits to Auburn, Indiana and Colorado this summer in addition to USC and took an unofficial visit to Indiana in February as new head coach Curt Cignetti looks to revamp the Hoosiers’ program.
“As of right now, I’m still locked in with USC,” Lewis said in the interview. “That’s still where my home is. Taking visits is kind of part of the process and I was gonna go see what’s going on everywhere else, but I’m still (with) USC right now.”
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This one is far from over.
All eyes on Texas
No state does high school football quite like Texas. This year should be no exception.
No. 5 DeSoto and No. 7 Duncanville — featuring Oregon commit Dakorien Moore, the No. 1 receiver in the country — meet in October in what should be a must-see matchup. And don’t forget about Alabama quarterback commit and fellow Duncanville star Keelon Russell. The state’s top quarterback, Russell flipped from SMU to the Crimson Tide in June. He and Moore just might be the best quarterback-receiver duo in the country.
(Photo of Julian Lewis: John David Mercer / USA Today)
Grace Raynor is a staff writer for The Athletic covering recruiting and southeastern college football. A native of western North Carolina, she graduated from the University of North Carolina. Follow Grace on Twitter @gmraynor
