There are a lot of great things about high school football: you have the small communities coming together on Friday night’s. You have young men portraying the role of heroes for 48 minutes, and you have cheerleaders giving their all in support of their team.

Unfortunately, there was one thing wrong with Georgia high school football, the overtime situation. Thankfully, that has been changed.

On Monday, March 31, the Georgia High School Association committee voted to end the current overtime system which saw the two teams play a pair of five-minute halves, with the team driving the deepest into their opponent’s territory becoming victorious.

Now, on a two-year trial basis, Georgia high school overtime games will be more like the National Collegiate Athletic Associations overtime periods. In the NCAA each team gets the same amount of possessions with them resulting in a touchdown, field goal, turnover, or a team running out of downs. The two teams get the ball at the 25-yard line.

The new high school overtime period will give each team the ball at the 15-yard line, with each possession ending in a touchdown, field goal, turnover or a team running out of downs. After each team has had the same amount of possessions and one team is leading, then they will become the winners.

If both teams score three touchdowns in overtime then they will be forced to begin going for two-point conversions from that point on after finding paydirt.

Also happening Monday at the GHSA meeting, the approval of a new school coming into Region 6-AAA took place.

Luella High School out of Henry County was approved to begin competing in the region this fall.

Other schools being approved were Peachtree Ridge (Gwinnett County) and Whitewater (Fayette). Peachtree Ridge will compete in Region 8-AAAAA, while Whitewater will compete in Region 4-AAAA.

In addition to the aforementioned things, the GHSA committee turned down the proposal to allow homeschool students to compete athletically at public schools, stating that if you open the door for some non-students to participate, then it’s unfair to not open the door for all non-students.