Football on a Wednesday night?
The Kell Longhorns will be putting on their pads in the middle of the week for real on Wednesday, and not for practice, when they become the first Cobb County high school to play a regular season football game.
The Longhorns will be the hosts against South Paulding at 8 p.m. Wednesday at The Stockyard (more info and ticket information).
It’s the second game of a doubleheader in the Corky Kell Classic, the annual start-of-season slate of games involving some of metro Atlanta’s top teams.
Kell, No. 10 in the preseason in the Georgia High School Association’s Class 4A rankings, is a mainstay in the Corky Kell Classic, named after the former Wheeler football coach. The Longhorns are coming off a 7-5 playoff season.
Also returning to the Corky Kell Classic again is Walton, which is unranked in Class 6A going into the 2025 season. The Raiders will be playing Saturday at 4 p.m. at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta against Cobb rival McEachern.
Walton was 7-4 last year but got knocked out in the first round of the state playoffs.
Everybody else kicks off their season on Friday, and the other four East Cobb high schools will be playing on the road.
That includes Sprayberry, No. 7 preseason in Class 5A. The Yellow Jackets will be playing at Alexander in Douglas County, looking to build off an historic 2024 season.
Sprayberry reached the state semifinals for the first time, and posted a school record 11 wins. But head coach Brett Vavra has left for Etowah, and his successor is Pete Fominaya, who comes from Hiram.
Lassiter, which as 2-8 last year, visits Midtown, while Pope, which was 4-6, will be at Cambridge, ranked No. 7 in Class 4A.
Wheeler, which was 2-9 but still reached the Class 6A playoffs, will play at North Forsyth on Friday.
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