Somebody in a scheduling office got ambitious this year. What is left of August 2026 has a 2-versus-3 collision, a national No. 1 opening on the road, a state semifinal rematch on national television, and more ranked-on-ranked violence than some entire Octobers manage.
The warmups have not been kind to the people who make boards for a living. Wednesday night in Atlanta, North Gwinnett led our No. 11 by 22 at halftime and by 37 in the third quarter before Grayson scored enough late to make the final look respectable. 37-22. One week into the season and somebody's preseason ranking is already a museum piece. Ours is in the building.
Tonight the home beat takes its turn. Corner Canyon, our No. 14 in America and No. 1 in Utah, opens at Davis in Kaysville at 7 o'clock, our Utah No. 5, with Casey Sutera coaching his first varsity game and Bode Sparrow, the reigning 6A player of the year, waiting on the other sideline. Sloane has already written the full case for and against that dynasty. We have the rest of the month.
And the rest of the month is where the national arguments get settled. Ten games, ten days, Aug. 20 through 29. Here they are.
| # | Date | Game (SPIN ranks) | Site | Watch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fri, Aug 21 | St. John Bosco (Bellflower, Calif.), No. 2, at Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas), No. 3 | Fertitta Field, Las Vegas | MaxPreps YouTube, 7 p.m. PT |
| 2 | Thu, Aug 20 | Brentwood Academy (Tenn.), No. 12, at Baylor School (Chattanooga, Tenn.), No. 4 | Chattanooga | ESPN2, 8 p.m. ET |
| 3 | Sat, Aug 29 | DeSoto (Texas), No. 16, at St. Thomas Aquinas (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), No. 13 | St. Thomas Aquinas, Fort Lauderdale | ESPN2, 6 p.m. ET |
| 4 | Fri, Aug 21 | IMG Academy (Bradenton, Fla.), No. 5, at Lone Peak (Highland, Utah), No. 21 | Highland, Utah | Kickoff time unsettled, check locally |
| 5 | Fri, Aug 28 | Duncanville (Texas), No. 10, at Allen (Texas), No. 26 | Allen, Texas | MaxPreps YouTube and NFHS Network, 7 p.m. CT |
| 6 | Fri, Aug 28 | St. Frances Academy (Baltimore), No. 1, at DeLand (Fla.) | Spec Martin Stadium, DeLand | 7 p.m. ET |
| 7 | Sat, Aug 29 | Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.), No. 9, at Orem (Utah) | Orem, Utah | 7 p.m. MT |
| 8 | Sat, Aug 29 | Chandler (Ariz.), No. 40, at Basha (Chandler, Ariz.), No. 19 | Chandler, Ariz. | ESPN, 10:30 p.m. ET |
| 9 | Sat, Aug 29 | Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas), No. 3, vs Columbus (Miami) | St. Thomas Aquinas, Fort Lauderdale | ESPN2, 2 p.m. ET |
| 10 | Thu, Aug 27 | Sierra Canyon (Chatsworth, Calif.), No. 17, vs Chaminade-Madonna (Hollywood, Fla.), No. 32 | McArthur High School, Hollywood, Fla. | BECON TV, 7 p.m. ET |
The main event needs no seasoning
No. 1 is the one you already knew. Bosco at Gorman, Aug. 21, Fertitta Field, our No. 2 at our No. 3, streaming on MaxPreps' YouTube channel as its Game of the Week. One spot separates them on our board, which is as close as any pairing gets in August, and Bosco's opening night doubles as a coronation audit.
One correction to how everyone has been framing it, us included until this week: this is not both teams' opener. Gorman got a live rep first, hosting Somerset Losee tonight in a league game at Fertitta Field. Bosco walks in cold against a team with a game of film on itself. The Review-Journal notes Gorman has won both prior meetings. Bosco flying in to fix that on the Gaels' home field is as clean as preseason theater gets.
No. 2 is the curtain-raiser, one night earlier, and it belongs to Tennessee. Brentwood Academy at Baylor School is the first meeting of two SPIN Top 50 teams this season, a rematch of December's Division II-AAA title game, a 28-24 Baylor School win, and the country gets it on ESPN2 while half the sport is still in shells.
It also gets the biggest individual headliner in the sport. David Gabriel Georges, Baylor School's five-star senior back, was a SPIN All-American last season and is the reigning MaxPreps national player of the year after running for 1,756 yards and 27 touchdowns at nearly 11 a carry, per the school. He committed to Tennessee in July over Ohio State and told Rivals this month that he is not talking to anyone else. The services call him the No. 2 running back in America. We've watched the tape and we're still looking for the guy who's supposed to be No. 1. DGG is the closest thing to a high school Adrian Peterson this desk has seen, and opening night hands him the country's full attention.
On our board the game is 12 at 4, the second-best pairing of the entire month. We put Baylor School fourth in America in July and nothing since has moved us. Three hours of film will tell you whose homework was better, and you know which way we're leaning.
Texas finally picked a date
For most of the summer the best all-Texas game on the calendar was a rumor with no kickoff attached. That closed: Duncanville at Allen, Friday, Aug. 28, 7 p.m. Central, MaxPreps' Game of the Week and an NFHS Network stream.
Read the matchup, not the record. This is a rematch of last December's Class 6A Division I state semifinal, which Duncanville won 31-9 on its way to the final. We have the Panthers 10th in America and the Eagles 26th, a sixteen-spot gap between two programs that met with a state final on the line eight months ago. Allen has two weeks to make our board look silly, and three hours of it will be televised.
It is also the reason this list moved. We left this game off our first pass in early August for one reason: nobody had announced a date. Now somebody has.
Florida hoards the last weekend
The Broward County National Football Showcase stacked its deck. Sierra Canyon against Chaminade-Madonna on Thursday the 27th at McArthur High in Hollywood, then Gorman against Columbus of Miami at 2 p.m. and DeSoto at host St. Thomas Aquinas at 6, both on ESPN2 on Saturday the 29th. Three of our ten out of one event.
DeSoto at St. Thomas Aquinas is the sweep's biggest argument settling itself early. We have STA 13th and DeSoto 16th, three spots apart, and we spent a week arguing about which order. Nobody else can agree either: Rivals opened DeSoto at No. 1 in America and MaxPreps opened them 33rd, which is a thirty-two-spot spread on one football team. The winner gets to spend September saying scoreboard.
And on Friday the 28th, the top of our whole board goes on the road: St. Frances Academy opens at DeLand, 7 p.m. at Spec Martin Stadium. DeLand went 12-1 last fall with zero transfers, per High School On SI and the Daytona Beach News-Journal, in the first season of Florida's new county-line transfer law. The best roster money can't buy under Maryland rules, visiting a roster built from one Florida county. Sloane wrote that story. August 28 grades it.
Utah gets visitors, plural
You know our thesis: Utah's fronts travel, and the national polls price the state like flyover country. August puts it under oath twice.
IMG Academy at Lone Peak, Aug. 21 in Highland. Our No. 5 at our No. 21, the same night Bosco and Gorman collide. Check the kickoff time locally before you drive; the listings do not agree with each other yet. The Knights sit outside every national top 100 but ours, and their answer to that is hosting the sport's most famous roster in week two.
Then Mater Dei at Orem, Aug. 29, 7 p.m. Read that again. The Monarchs, ninth in America on our board, open at the Santa Ana Bowl against American Fork on Aug. 21 and then get on a plane to play a Utah public school.
And the hosts are no scheduling accident. Orem is our No. 3 in Utah and the defending 5A champion, per On3, and the headliner is Krew Jones, the four-star Oklahoma commit who arrived from Ridgeline as a top-20 edge in the Rivals industry rankings. Behind him is a 2028 class that owns the top of 247Sports' state board: Maui Tonata, Mataio Fano and Major Stokes go 1-2-3 in Utah for that cycle, and Noah Seufale makes it four Tigers in the top 10. Mater Dei's trenches against that pipeline is the whole doctrine argument in miniature. If it holds anywhere, it has to hold on a Saturday like that.
The desert closes the month arguing with itself
Chandler at Basha, Saturday the 29th, 10:30 Eastern on ESPN, is the rematch of December's Open Division final, the one Basha won 34-7, and USA Today notes the Bears have taken six straight in the series. Chandler brings Oregon commit Will Mencl at quarterback. We have Basha 19th and Chandler 40th and Arizona hates us for it. Fine. Win out west and the numbers move.
Honorable mentions, briefly: St. Joseph Regional (Montvale, N.J.) at Mount Carmel (Chicago) on Aug. 28 is our 35 at our 34, one rank apart, tied with Bosco at Gorman for the tightest pairing anywhere in August and the one of the two you would genuinely flip a coin on. ESPN has it in the odd slot of 1:30 p.m. Eastern. Gainesville (Ga.) visits No. 6 Buford at 5 p.m. Eastern on ESPN2 Aug. 22. Roman Catholic (Philadelphia), our No. 49, walks into Bosco on Aug. 28. East St. Louis (Ill.) plays at American Heritage (Plantation, Fla.) the same night in the Broward showcase. Miami Central visits Orange Lutheran and Jones (Orlando) visits Santa Margarita, both Aug. 21, both California-Florida border wars, both per High School Football America's interstate list. And Grayson, having already lost its opener, goes to Sandy Creek (Tyrone, Ga.) on Aug. 21 with a ranking to defend that it no longer entirely owns.
Ten games, ten days, at least five direct answers to arguments we started in July. August used to be for acclimatization. Now it's for receipts.
