Welcome back to The Huddle, our notes & trends column for North Carolina high school football.

This week, since I wasn’t able to get this out until Friday, I have a mixture of previews for tonight’s games and the stats and streaks from last week. I also laid out my vision for what the 1A-8A state championships schedule could be next year.

1st Down: Week 5 Games with Conference Title & Playoff Implications

• Vance County @ Southern Durham – This matchup is effectively the conference championship game for the Northern Lakes 2A/3A. A lot has to be determined on the 2A side of things, it’s not likely that the best 2A team will beat the winner of Vance/Southern.
• Mallard Creek @ West Charlotte – As this is a 3A vs. 4A matchup, the playoff implications are minimal. However, both of these teams have the talent to win the overall conference championship. If Mallard Creek wants to win the league title over Hough, it can’t slip up against anyone else. If Mallard loses to West Charlotte, the Mavericks would have to rely on the Lions to then beat Hough as well to force a tie in the 4A section of the league. A loss here wouldn’t kill West Charlotte’s chances on the 3A side.
• Statesville @ North Lincoln & Hickory @ East Lincoln – the four best teams in the Western Foothills 3A Conference are facing off against each other tonight.It’s entirely possible that the two teams that come out of tonight’s games with a win are the two that receiver the automatic bids out of the league at the end of the year.
• East Forsyth @ Reagan & West Forsyth @ Mount Tabor – Like what we have in the Western Foothills Conference, the top four teams in the Central Piedmont 4A are facing off tonight. The odds of the winners of these two games receiving an automatic bid come playoff time are very high.
• Ashbrook @ Crest – The Big South 3A is one of the best conferences in North Carolina. With each team at 3-0, Ashbrook and Crest each have an argument for the top team in the league this year. When we look back in November, this mid-September game could be what decided the whole thing.
• Farmville Central @ SouthWest Edgecombe – The Eastern Plains 2A Conference is stacked this fall and Farmville Central/SouthWest Edgecombe are arguably the most talented teams. We could look back on this September 20 matchup as the game that decided the conference champion.
• Ashley @ Laney – The winner of this game will prove to be the team that is most equipped to threaten Hoggard for the top of the Mideastern 3A/4A.
• Panther Creek @ Apex – The Southwest Wake Athletic Conference has not been good this year. Middle Creek has been a disappointment so far and Holly Springs is working through a load on new faces. At this point, Apex Friendship looks most likely to win the league, but there could be a window for Apex or Panther Creek to make a play for the conference title. A win here could put either on that path.
• Williams @ Southern Alamance – An argument can be made that Williams and Southern Alamance are the two best teams in the Central 3A this year. Williams is 3-1 and Southern Alamance is 2-2 after losing to two good non-conference opponents. The winner here tonight could get one of the top seeds in the 3A East.
• James Kenan @ East Duplin – At 4-0, James Kenan is looking positioned to win the coveted East Central 2A title this year. The Tigers will have to beat East Duplin to put themselves in the early drivers’ seat.
• Northeast Guilford @ Eastern Guilford – With Northeast at 1-2 and Eastern at 0-3, neither team has had a great start to the season. However, they’re still arguably the most talented of the teams below Dudley in the Mid-State 3A. The winner here could end up with the automatic playoff berth for the second place team on seeding Saturday.
• New Bern @ Havelock – New Bern and Havelock are the favorites to be the top 4A and top 3A out of the Big Carolina 3A/4A, respectively. However, this rivalry game could decide the overall conference crown. The winner here might be able to hang a banner.

2nd Down: The best possible layout for 8 state championships in 2025

I’ll admit, this section has nothing to do with what is currently happening this season. But I’ve been randomly thinking about this lately and I want to put it out there before I forget.

Here’s my ideal schedule for next year’s 8 football state championships:

• Friday
  • 7pm: 8A @ Allegacy Federal (Winston-Salem)
• Saturday
  • 11am: 3A @ Bank of America (Charlotte)
  • 1pm: 4A @ Carter-Finley (Raleigh)
  • 3pm: 5A @ Bank of America (Charlotte)
  • 5 pm: 6A @ Carter-Finley (Raleigh)
  • 7pm: 7A @ Bank of America (Charlotte)
• Sunday
  • 1pm: 1A @ Wallace Wade (Durham)
  • 5pm: 2A @ Wallace Wade (Durham)

These locations can swap around, but the start times are what is most important here.

This makes it possible for someone (me) to catch 6 of the 8 games if they want to. Back when we had the eight subclassifcation state championships, they used to play two games at the same time. I hated that. I want to see as many of these games in full as possible. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. The way I have this Saturday set up with the staggered start times will also allow someone like me to watch/stream a good portion TV copy of the two games at 11:00 and 5:00.

Also, the NCHSAA doesn’t have an extraordinarily large staff. It’s actually quite small. If they can limit the overlap in scheduling as much as possible, that would be a big help for them, especially for the folks on the media/PR side of the operation.

The NCHSAA has expressed interest in playing at Bank of America Stadium and there is talk that the Panthers might be interested as well. If you have to put 3 games in one stadium in a day, that’s the best place to do it. If the Panthers/BoA don’t get on board, I’d swap in Kenan Stadium at UNC-Chapel Hill in its place here. That is my least favorite of the in-state ACC stadiums, however.

I have no idea if they’ll actually play games on Sunday, but if they do it, it would make the most sense to give that day to 1A and 2A so they have extra time to refresh. It’s also a possibility for 1A and 2A to be combined into one class for football. The Sunday games would require interest from the host facilities as well. Obviously, if they got Bank of America, it wouldn’t be possible to do Sundays. If the NCHSAA wanted to roll the dice and cut down the state championship time slots from 4 hours to 3.5 hours, you could kind of sort of fit 4 games in one stadium in a day. 10:00, 1:30, 5:00, 8:30.

Another caveat: we’re not sure if the NCHSAA will have eight different state championships. It looks like the number of 11-man teams in the new 1A will be on the lower side, but I’m not sure it will be low enough to force a combination of 1A and 2A. If I had to put money on it now, I’d have it on us have all eight separate.

3rd Down: Milestones & Streaks

Here are the updated active winning and losing streaks:

• Asheville School winning streak (9 games)
• Cedar Ridge losing streak (23 games)
• East Rowan losing streak (14 games)
• Foard losing streak (37 games)
• Garinger losing streak (31 games)
• Hickory winning streak (19 games)
• Morehead losing streak (17 games)
• Mount Airy winning streak (34 games)
• Patton losing streak (14 games)
• Reidsville winning streak (16 games)
• Rocky Mount Prep losing streak (18 games)
• Smithfield-Selma losing streak (14 games)
• Spring Creek losing streak (17 games)
• Swansboro losing streak (16 games)
• Weddington winning streak (10 games)
• West Caldwell losing streak (34 games)
• Western Harnett losing streak (15 games)

Other streaks to watch this season:

• Cleveland has not lost a regular season varsity game since 2019. The Rams have won 46-straight regular season games and 45-straight JV games
• Reidsville has gone 382 games in a row without being shut out. They’ve scored at least 10 points in the last 122 games
• Northeastern has won 13 consecutive conference championships
• Watauga has not lost a conference game since October of 2017. The Pioneers have won 36 straight conference games
• Tarboro has appeared in seven consecutive state championships dating back to 2017

Quick Hits

• Donut Squad: These teams shut out their opponents in week 4 of the high school football season: Anson, Berry, Cherokee, Corvian Community, East Henderson, Highland Tech, Jay M. Robinson, Jordan, Monroe, Mount Airy, New Bern, Pisgah, Richlands, Robbinsville, Sanderson, Seventy-First, South Stanly, St. Pauls, Starmount, Vance County, Warren County
• 50-Burgers! These 11-man teams eclipsed 50 points scored in week 4 of the high school football season: Highland Tech (70), South Columbus (70), Hickory (69), Sanderson (68), Cherokee (67), South Stanly (66), Monroe (63), Providence Day (63), Jordan (62), North Duplin (62), Sun Valley (61), Hobbton (59), Charlotte Latin (58), Starmount (58), Corvian Community (57), Richlands (57), Brevard (56), Chambers (56), Cummings (56), North Lincoln (56), East Rutherford (55), Northern Nash (55), Southwest Onslow (55), T.W. Andrews (55), Havelock (54), St. Pauls (54), East Lincoln (52), North Mecklenburg (52), North Pitt (52), Roanoke Rapids (52), Ashbrook (50), Seaforth (50), Southern Lee (50)

Victory Formation

Tonight, I’ll be in Mecklenburg County to see the Mallard Creek @ West Charlotte game. This was a heck of a game last year and I’m excited to see if it can match that level of last year. The fascinating component of this game is that Mallard Creek is coming off of a short week after a Saturday win in Ohio, while West Charlotte hasn’t played a game in two weeks. Will the extra rest help West Charlotte, or will the Lions be rusty?

Source: highschoolot.com