Indiana’s win in the College Football Playoff reminded us that anything is possible in this modern era of college football with transfer portals and NIL. And it also reminded us that the best way to determine a national championship is on the field.

So, we decided we’d take a closer look at the conclusion of the 2025 high school football season where another unlikely first-time national champion was crowned.

The Buford Wolves were the consensus No. 1 team in The Sporting News Composite Rankings as six of the eight selectors there picked them to be the national champion for the first time in the school’s history. The final two votes were split between the Bixby [OK] Spartans (Massey Ratings) and the St. Thomas Aquinas [Fort Lauderdale, FL] Raiders (High School Football America).

One of those selectors, of course, was The Sporting News itself, and we were among the six that chose Buford along with BlueStar Media, ESPN, MaxPreps, SI, and USA Today. 

No. 1 Buford ultimately outlasted No. 2 Carrollton in Georgia’s Class 6A state championship game, and with top teams in California, Florida, and Texas all suffering significant losses in 2025, the Wolves’ resume was deemed to be the best by those six selectors.

But while surviving Georgia’s daunting GHSA Class 6A state championship bracket – a five-round, 32-team gauntlet that included two other nationally-ranked Top 10 programs – was no small feat, it obviously didn’t include any other nationally-ranked teams from outside Georgia.

Would the Wolves actually be able to get through a national playoff bracket on the field unscathed? We took our best shot at how we think it would play out.

MORE: The Sporting News high school football All-American team

Introducing … The High School Football Playoff

The College Football Playoff is an uncomplicated moniker and an apt descriptor all in one. So, we decided to follow that model as well when setting up our mythical bracket and call it, simply … The High School Football Playoff.

For simplicity sake, we selected the 12 highest-ranked teams from the final edition of SN’s national top 25 for our bracket.

No. Team Record
1. Buford [GA] Wolves 15-0
2. St. Frances Academy [Baltimore, MD] Panthers 9-1
3. IMG Academy [Bradenton, FL] Ascenders 9-0
4. St. Thomas Aquinas [Fort Lauderdale, FL] Raiders 14-1
5. Bishop Gorman [Las Vegas, NV] Gaels 11-1
6. Santa Margarita [Rancho Santa Margarita, CA] Eagles 11-3
7. Carrollton [GA] Trojans 14-1
8. Grayson [Loganville, GA] Rams 13-1
9. DeMatha [Hyattsville, MD] Stags 11-0
10. Edna Karr [New Orleans, LA] Cougars 14-0
11. Creekside [Fairburn, GA] Seminoles 15-0
12. Grimsley [Greensboro, NC] Whirlies 15-0

Of course, the big question is… where are the teams from Texas?

The answer is simple – all of the favorites in Texas lost down the stretch with a two-loss North Shore [Houston, TX] Mustangs’ squad taking down the Lone Star State’s top-ranked team at the time in the No. 5 Duncanville [TX] Panthers in the Texas UIL Class 6A Division I state championship game. That knocked Duncanville out of the field, and North Shore finished just outside of the Top 12 at No. 13.

The only other hope for the Lone Star State headed into the championship weekend was the No. 12 Randle [Richmond, TX] Lions who also lost in the Class 5A Division II title game to the South Oak Cliff [Dallas, TX] Bears – who had lost to Duncanville earlier in the season. That was the final blow, resulting in no team from Texas being ranked in the final Top 12.

With the field settled, we then applied the College Football Playoff model to our list of teams, awarding the top four – Buford, St. Frances Academy, IMG Academy, and St. Thomas Aquinas – our first-round byes. From there, we began filling out our complete bracket headed into the opening round games, and it ended up looking like this:

Finally, with our bracket set, it was time to dig into the results and get an idea of how these teams matched up in these mythical matchups. For entertainment purposes only, this is what we came up with.

The High School Football Playoff opening round

No. 5 Bishop Gorman 45, No. 12 Grimsley 21

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Bishop Gorman’s only loss headed into this theoretical matchup with North Carolina’s top-ranked Grimsley would be to the Mater Dei [Santa Ana, CA] Monarchs, the two-time defending national champions. Grimsley, meanwhile, would enter the game on a 31-game win streak, but they would also have to travel across the country to play on Bishop Gorman’s turf.

There are several ways to connect these teams through common opponents, including a 10-game loop through Bishop Gorman’s games against East St. Louis, which played at Bergen Catholic in New Jersey, or through Mater Dei or Santa Margarita which both played St. John Bosco. St. John Bosco, in turn, played St. Frances Academy of Baltimore, and through either Bergen Catholic or St. Frances you can make a pretty quick path to North Carolina’s top teams including Grimsley.

Suffice it to say, most of those shorter paths suggest Bishop Gorman would be the better team by a healthy margin, and even with one of the nation’s top-rated prospects at quarterback in Faizon Brandon, Grimsley would likely struggle to keep pace with the Gaels on the road. Bishop Gorman would have as many as 13 prospects rated with 3 stars or above by 247sports.com while Grimsley would have five, and ultimately, it feels like a game where Bishop Gorman’s depth would eventually take over and deliver a comfortable win for the Gaels at home.

© Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

No. 6 Santa Margarita 49, No. 11 Creekside 42

MISSION HILLS, California — After breaking the single-season scoring record for most points in a season in Georgia prep football history, Creekside would enter the playoff as the dark horse in this field. Their reward would be facing the Santa Margarita Eagles who won California’s Division I state title in their first year under Heisman Trophy-winning alum Carson Palmer.

You can connect these two programs through a loop of eight games via Creekside’s game against Florida’s Seminole [Sanford, FL] Seminoles. From there, a path runs through Florida’s IMG Academy to East St. Louis which played Bishop Gorman and then to Santa Margarita. And, perhaps, surprisingly, you can make a case that the Seminoles would stack up pretty well against the California kingpins. Of course, Creekside beat DeSoto [TX], 70-28, and the Eagles went on to win the Texas UIL Class 6A Division II state championship so they are clearly a very good team.

Santa Margarita, meanwhile, finally found its offense once Trent Mosley, California returned to the fold around midseason, and while the Eagles’ defense was elite, that’s also true of Creekside’s record-setting offense. We expect this one could be a lot of fun, but in the end, you’d expect Santa Margarita to survive on its own home turf.

 

 

No. 7 Carrollton 35, No. 10 Edna Karr 24

CARROLLTON, Georgia — These two teams are connected in at least one path through a loop of eight games that goes through No. 11 Creekside into Florida through powerhouses Chaminade-Madonna and American Heritage, the latter of which won Florida’s FHSAA Class 4A state championship.

American Heritage lost, 24-17, in overtime at Edna Karr early in the season, giving us a direct link, and the entire loop suggests that this matchup would be a pretty spirited affair. Ultimately at home, we expect the Trojans, with talent like future Notre Dame running back Jonaz Walton, would defend their home field successfully, but they’d probably have their hands full for a while against a Cougars’ squad that would enter this game on a 28-game win streak.

 

 

No. 9 DeMatha 28, No. 8 Grayson 14

LOGANVILLE, Georgia — In the only upset of the opening round, we believe DeMatha would sneak out of Georgia with a win over No. 8 Grayson in a game that ends up being surprisingly one-sided.

These two teams can be connected through a short four-game loop in which DeMatha blew out the Roman Catholic [Philadelphia, PA] Cahillite, 44-7, a team that lost by only a point, 29-28, to Providence Day [Charlotte, NC]. The Chargers, in turn, blew out the Rabun Gap [GA]-Nachoochee Eagles – a team that gave Grayson a run for its money in Loganville in a 24-19 loss during the regular season.

With two blowouts favoring DeMatha in such a short loop, we feel like the undefeated Stags would be a tough out for Grayson – even with the Rams getting them at home.

The High School Football Playoff quarterfinals

No. 1 Buford 28, No. 9 DeMatha 24

BUFORD, Georgia — After earning a first-round bye, Buford would host DeMatha, in search of a second straight upset win in Georgia.

But two trips in a row to the Peach State against teams ranked in the national Top 10 is a tall order. Using that same four-game loop that connected DeMatha to Grayson, you can add Grayson’s game vs. Carrollton, followed by Carrollton’s state championship meeting with Buford. If the evidence suggests that DeMatha might stack up pretty well against Grayson, it’s also true that Carrollton smoked Grayson, 34-14, in Georgia’s GHSA Class 6A quarterfinals.

Throw in Buford’s 28-21 win over Carrollton in the state championship game, and the fact that Buford hasn’t lost, yet, at their sparkling new Philip Beard Stadium, and it feels like a tough chore for DeMatha to pull off two wins in a row against two of Georgia’s best programs.

 

 

No. 2 St. Frances Academy 35, No. 7 Carrollton 28

BALTIMORE, Maryland — In one of the more intriguing matchups, No. 2 St. Frances Academy would host No. 7 Carrollton.

These teams are connected in a six-game loop through that Rabun Gap-Nachoochee squad that played both Grayson and Providence Day. From there, you can run a thread through Roman Catholic to St. Joseph’s Prep and, finally, St. Frances Academy. You can also connect them through a four-game loop through Buford, Milton [GA], and The First Academy [Orlando, FL] which tips heavily in St. Frances Academy’s favor. The first thread suggests a pretty tight game between these two powerhouses, but ultimately, either way, it appears beating St. Frances Academy on the road would be a heavy lift for Carrollton.

We’d take the Panthers in a close game at home.

No. 6 Santa Margarita 17, No. 3 IMG Academy 14

BRADENTON, Florida — In another great quarterfinal matchup, we’d have the kings of California against the top-ranked team in Florida, and they are connected through a tight four-game loop that runs from IMG through East St. Louis to Bishop Gorman and then Santa Margarita. East St. Louis lost to Bishop Gorman and IMG by almost identical margins (25 and 24 points), suggesting a close matchup on neutral ground between those two programs.

Bishop Gorman, meanwhile, beat Santa Margarita 14-0 on September 27, but that was before Trent Mosley returned from injury. Santa Margarita averaged barely 20 points per game against their non-conference schedule without Mosley, but that number jumped to more than 33 points per game with Mosley against the Eagles’ more formidable schedule of Trinity League and playoff opponents. That suggests that, with Mosley, Santa Margarita would have likely fared much better against Bishop Gorman.

IMG would have the home field advantage, but in a one-game scenario, this Santa Margarita squad could probably go toe-to-toe with any team in the country.

 

 

No. 4 St. Thomas Aquinas 30, No. 5 Bishop Gorman 21

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida — Both of these teams played Mater Dei at home, and both of them lost by a field goal so they feel about as evenly matched as you can get on paper.

But St. Thomas Aquinas would have the homefield advantage, and they would be hard to beat on their own ground in south Florida with a chance to advance to the national semifinals.

The High School Football Playoff semifinals

No. 1 Buford 35, No. 4 St. Thomas Aquinas 31

BUFORD, Georgia — Our first semifinal would stick closely to the script, featuring the two top-ranked teams on this side of the bracket.

Buford opened the season with a 20-13 win over the Milton which defeated The First Academy, 21-14, a week later. The First Academy then beat Lakeland in a 35-28 double-overtime thriller in the regular season finale, and Lakeland advanced to play for Florida’s FHSAA Class 5A title against St. Thomas Aquinas a few weeks later.

St. Thomas Aquinas won that game, 29-0, suggesting that they might line up pretty well against Buford. The deciding factor here, however, would be the fact that Buford would have the homefield advantage again, and that might prove to be too much for the Raiders although it looks like the kind of matchup that could result in an exciting shootout.

 

No. 2 St. Frances Academy 17, No. 6 Santa Margarita 14

BALTIMORE, Maryland — St. Frances Academy and Santa Margarita both played the St. John Bosco [Bellflower, CA] Braves, and it turned out to be St. Frances Academy’s only loss of the year in a 21-14 setback. But St. Frances Academy had to travel across the country for that game, while Santa Margarita got the Braves at home and still lost, 27-13. That was their only loss after Mosley’s return so both teams were at full strength.

The game would feature two of the nation’s elite defenses so it feels like a fairly low-scoring affair, but in this scenario, it would be played in Baltimore. With the margins razor thin, that’s the difference here.

The High School Football Playoff national championship

No. 1 Buford 20, No. 2 St. Frances Academy 17

BUFORD, Georgia — These two teams have a close connection through the same loop that tied Buford to St. Thomas Aquinas.

In this case, The First Academy played at St. Frances Academy head-to-head, losing 37-0 on October 3, and of course Buford beat Milton which beat The First Academy with both of those games being decided by a touchdown. That suggests that St. Frances Academy and Buford would probably be a pretty good game and might even tip in St. Frances’s favor if this game was played in a neutral location.

But if Buford hosted the game as the higher seed, it would probably be even closer, and it just feels like this was a season where the Wolves were not going to be beaten at home in the inaugural season at their new stadium. This matchup would be similar to the St. Frances-Santa Margarita semifinal with two teams built around stout defenses trading body blows in search of that one knockout punch.

In the end, we’d go with Buford at home while acknowledging what we said back during the regular season when St. Frances fought St. John Bosco to a near standstill on the road in California – the Panthers may have very well been the best team in the country on a neutral field.

How realistic is a true national high school football playoff?

Let’s start with the most obvious roadblock – the fact that each state has its own governing body with its own playoff structures and different start and end dates. Unlike major college football which all falls under the governance of the NCAA, there is very little uniformity across the national high school football calendar with the season kicking off as early as the second week of August in Hawaii and as late as the second week of September in Connecticut.

Additionally, some small states have playoff brackets with as few as four teams requiring only two weeks for the postseason while Texas takes six weeks to sort out its champions at the highest levels. For that reason, Texas doesn’t currently wrap up its state championships until the weekend before Christmas. 

It seems like the only way to make a national high school football playoff work in the future is if selected teams were allowed to ‘opt out’ of their state playoff tournaments to compete in the national event.

That would have affected the 12 teams that would make our mythical bracket because the rankings headed into the playoffs looked very different than our final rankings issued after the season ended. 

Certainly nothing would appear to be imminent, but the creation of the Overtime Nationals is a step in that direction. While none of the national championship selectors in The Sporting News Composite Rankings ultimately chose St. Frances Academy, the Panthers did elect to play in that game on December 10 where they defeated the Corner Canyon [Draper, UT] Chargers, 37-20.

Corner Canyon was Utah’s UHSAA Class 6A state champion, and they took the place of what presumably would have been IMG Academy when the Ascenders ultimately chose to end their season early. St. Frances was able to hoist the Overtime Nationals trophy and claim their own share of the national championship, giving us four national champions in high school football last fall. And at least that championship was decided on the field in an actual contest billed as a national championship game.

The CFP national championship game between Indiana and Miami reminded that a playoff is the only surefire way to eliminate the mass confusion of having multiple champions.

Maybe some day, high school football will figure out a way to crown its champion on the field, too.

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