THOMASTON, Ga. — Hurricane Helene caused a significant amount of damage around Georgia.
Nearly every school in Central Georgia closed, and many after school activities, including football games, were cancelled. For that reason, many teams were forced to reschedule or cancel their games scheduled for Sept. 27.
On Tuesday, the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) announced post season schedule changes to allow many football teams across the state to make up their previously cancelled matchups.
While the high school football regular season was set to conclude on Nov. 1 — and still will for several teams — many others will have an extra week to reschedule games.
Nov. 8 was named the new final Friday of the regular season. This will be a possible makeup day for teams like Dublin, who's game against Northeast was tentatively rescheduled to Friday, Oct. 11.
GHSA added that if schools miss two or more games due to Helene, they may need to play multiple games in a week, including playing games on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday.
Many teams, including a matchup between Veterans and Houston County, moved their games from Friday to Saturday following Helene. Teams can also use a previously scheduled bye week to reschedule games.
Nov. 8 was initially scheduled as the first round of the playoffs. Instead, the first round will now happen on Friday, Nov. 15 and Saturday, Nov. 16, as the whole playoff schedule is moved back on week.
The second round will be played on Nov. 22, while the third round will be played on Nov. 29, which is the day after Thanksgiving.
GHSA, before the season started, announced that there would be no games played the week of Nov. 29. Notably, Georgia and Georgia Tech will also face off the same day in Athens.
The semifinals will take place on Dec. 6 and the finals will take place from Dec. 16 through Dec. 18. These dates are unchanged from the initial schedule. The championship games will still be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
GHSA said their Associate Director of Football, Jay Russell, will work directly with athletic directors, coaches and principles for further changes.
On GHSA's post on X, formerly Twitter, there were some concerns about the upcoming post season schedules for softball and cross country. GHSA noted further schedule changes will be announced later in the week.
Stick with 13WMAZ for further schedule updates in the aftermath of Helene.