North Gwinnett Put Georgia on Notice: 5 Things We Learned From Its Win Over Grayson

Wednesday may have told us less about Grayson's collapse than it did about everyone underrating North Gwinnett.

No. 8 North Gwinnett came out early making plays all over the field against No. 2 Grayson. | Credit: Jonathan Giles

Saying North Gwinnett won its first game of the season against Grayson is putting it mildly.

They beat them.

The Bulldogs led 22-0 at halftime and pushed it to 37-0 in the third quarter. For a while, Georgia high school football’s opening night looked less like a matchup between two of the state’s best teams and more like somebody had flipped the channel to WWE SmackDown.

Grayson eventually scored three touchdowns to make the final score 37-22 respectable, but by then we had seen everything we needed to see.

Here are five things we learned Wednesday night.

1. North Gwinnett was Probably Underrated

Admittedly, our initial ranking of North Gwinnett No. 8 in Georgia may have been a bit too conservative. It wasn’t necessarily bulletin board material, but clearly the Bulldogs deserved a little bit more respeck on their name.

Last year the Bulldogs went 12-2 and reached the Class 6A semifinals. They returned quarterback Elam Rahman, NC State commit Jake Godfree and plenty of experience around them. Maybe Wednesday wasn’t so much an upset as a closer look at a contender that had been in plain sight the entire time.

2. Elam Rahman Made Quarterback Look Easy

Rahman came out no brakes, all gas, completing 8 of 9 passes for 147 yards and three touchdowns, starting his season with a 54-yard flea flicker to Evan Hawkins.

That kind of efficiency becomes especially dangerous when a quarterback doesn’t have to be the entire offense.

3. The Defense is North Gwinnett’s Personality

Grayson managed just two rushing yards in the first half, and every time the Rams appeared ready to gain some momentum, North Gwinnett's defense shut it down.

The defining moment of the first half came when Godfree intercepted Deuce Smith and returned it 56 yards for a touchdown. His father and head coach, Eric Godfree, described Grayson afterward as the kind of program that has spent years being the “bully,” saying sometimes you have to hit the bully early.

North Gwinnett apparently took that literally.

4. Don’t let 37-22 fool you

Months from now, someone scrolling through Grayson’s schedule might see the final and assume this was a close competitive game. It wasn’t.

The Rams scored all 22 points after falling behind 37-0. The late offense showed there is still plenty of talent on Grayson’s roster, but don’t be fooled for the first three quarters. North Gwinnett controlled the game and dictated how it was played.

5. It’s Just Game One

Opening-night reactions are fun because they are often followed by a harsh reality.

North Gwinnett now has to handle something it didn’t have Wednesday... expectations. Grayson has the opposite problem. New head coach Greg Carswell’s first regular-season game as head coach leaves us with questions, and the Rams with a schedule featuring Sandy Creek, Langston Hughes, Brunswick and Buford that won’t give him much time to answer them.

Bulldog's linebacker Jake Godfree said afterward that if North Gwinnett keeps playing together, “nobody can beat us in the state.”

It’s a brash statement for so early in August, but we had them ranked No. 8 in the state — so what do we know? This is what makes high school football fun. Those in the press box will make assumptions based on scouting reports, biases and sometimes plain ole gut feelings. And each week the players have a chance to prove us wrong.

We do know one thing, though, that we didn't know before the season started. Take North Gwinnett seriously.