By: Kenneth Harrison

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

This is my favorite time of year, the beginning of football season. Let’s take a look at the top program in 7A and see how they started the season.

#1 Buford: The Wolves were undefeated in 2025 and won the national championship. They won the 6A state championship against Carrolton, 28-21.

Georgia has reintroduced the 7A classification this season and Buford is starting ranked at the top.

They did lose a lot of talent from that team. Some of the key players that graduated were starting quarterback Dayton Raiola, four-star safety and running back Tyriq “Ty Boogie” Green and leading rusher and three-star RB Dylan McCoy

“The biggest goal is being able to reset from last year with us being national champions,” said DJ Hunter, Buford’s starting quarterback and James Madison commit. “We want to create our own team instead of living off of the success from last year.”

There are some players with limited playing time that are expected to step up this season. Seniors Jameer Cantrell and Silas Nuckles bring some experience in the ground game. Cantrell, an Arkansas commit, had 43 carries for 303 yards and three touchdowns, while he also had 41 tackles as a defensive back in 2025.

Junior WR Braylon Williams is expected to be a top target for Hunter. He had 199 yards and four receiving touchdowns in seven games last year before missing the rest of the season due to injury.

Some additional highly ranked recruits on the roster are: LB Brayden Watson (Michigan), LB Ethan Hauser (Vanderbilt), S Jameer Cantrell (Arkansas), DE Luke Nabors (Offers from Auburn, Florida State, Miami (FL), Penn State and Georgia), DL Krystian Walcott (Boston College) and OL Noah Nixon (Pitt).

“They’re doing a good job of not making it all about what we did last year, because last year is not going to help us right now,” said head coach Bryant Appling. “So, I’m excited for the fact that they’re trying to be their own entity within the realm of beautiful football and start this campaign off the right way.”

They opened the season last week against the #3 team in 6A, Gainesville with a nationally televised game on ESPN. The Red Elephants advanced to the 5A state championship game last season.

Gainesville also added former Grayson head coach, Santavious Bryant. He coached the Rams from 2023-25 and led them to the 6A state championship in 2024. They were the top team in the state for most of 2025 until they lost to Carrolton in the playoffs and finished the season 12-1.

Buford won the game, 39-19. The Wolves pulled away in the second half. Gainesville turned the ball over five times and Buford scored 29 unanswered points.

Gainesville allowed two special teams touchdowns because of bad snaps that its punter could not catch, and both times Buford recovered in the end zone. They also had a third special teams’ turnover when their kick returner, Legend Wilmont fumbled during a punt return.

This was a big win and a great start to the season. Somehow, things got even better for them after that.

The nation’s No. 1 defensive lineman and No.4 overall recruit for the class of 2027, Jalen Brewster announced he’s transferring to Buford over the weekend. The 6’3, 300 lbs. Texas Tech commit is transferring from Cedar Hill (TX).

The only other tough game on the schedule appeared to be the September 18^th matchup at #2 Grayson before the season started. The Rams are 0-2 so now that looks like a cakewalk.

I expect Buford to repeat as national champs.