No. 1 Creekside vs. No. 2 Thomas County Central: Inside Georgia’s Biggest OTA

Apologies for the lighter posting schedule over the past few days. I’ve been working behind the scenes on several projects, but our full slate of season previews and articles will resume next week.

In the meantime, several major padded camps and OTAs kicked off yesterday, including a highly anticipated matchup featuring Public Schools Preseason Top 100 No. 1 Creekside, No. 2 Thomas County Central and fellow Georgia state-title contender Troup County.

Jacob Carlton (@jacob_carlton13 on X) was on-site and provided outstanding video and firsthand insight from the session. Both Creekside and Thomas County Central showed why they enter 2026 as legitimate state-championship contenders.

Here is Carlton’s assessment, with the reminder that it was only an OTA and both teams were missing players:

"My thoughts on Creekside and Thomas County Central, taking everything with a grain of salt since it was only an OTA and both teams were missing players.

Creekside looked very good in the trenches and ran the ball extremely well against the TCC defense. Their offensive line, and running back Gary Walker, is an absolute problem to deal with. The one thing that could potentially hold them back from a state title run is the quarterback play. He never really looked comfortable and missed several open receivers throughout the day. That’s unfortunate because Creekside has weapons all over the field.

Defensively, Creekside was just as impressive. Thomas County Central couldn’t get much going at all on the ground, which is usually their bread and butter. I was very impressed with Creekside’s ability to stop the run.