Gwinnett Daily Post

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Editor's Note: Brandon Brigman, a sports writer for the Daily Post, writes a blog every Monday called "The Blitz." It is available online at www.gwinnettdailypost.com.

I'll admit, I'm getting a little old.

When I played football in Gwinnett County in the late '90s we had our share of standout teams and top players.

The county has nearly doubled the amount of teams since then and the talent has increased as well.

The biggest thing though is the exposure of the teams and players. You can say the growth of the Internet has played a big role in that.

But there's a lot more TV exposure now than ever for high school football.

Georgia Public Broadcasting aired all four of the Corky Kell Classic games two weeks ago and the network will air a game every Friday this season up to the state finals. Channel 2 is showing a weekly Thursday night game, which Dacula-Norcross played in two weeks ago and South-M.L. King will play this Thursday.

North Gwinnett and Grayson played Saturday night games that were televised on CSS and Buford played its game on ESPN360. The Wolves will play again on ESPN in two weeks.

I've always felt Gwinnett County football was the best in the state and the rest of state and parts of the country is able to see that now.

Here are some of the standout performances from the first full week of the season. What stood out to you?

Eagles reload

If Jordan Parker can continue to have games like he did against Roswell on Friday, Collins Hill might be better this year than it was last season.

Parker rushed for 210 yards and two touchdowns in the Eagles' 24-21 come from behind win over Roswell.

The Eagles' offense had to rely on Taylor Heinicke last season at quarterback, which gave them a quick strike offense. As fun as it was to watch, I still think you have to have a really good running game to win a state championship. Parker gives them that dimension. You can read more about Parker and teammate Nick England in this story I did about the pair last week.

Freeze alert

Anfornee 'Freeze' Stewart could end up being the county's top quarterback this season. The senior put on an impressive performance in Duluth's season opening win over Archer.

Stewart threw for 351 yards and four touchdowns. His go-to guy was Myles Campbell, who hauled in eight catches for 231 yards and three TDs.

All three of the TDs came big plays of 76, 43 and 70 yards.North bounces backNorth Gwinnett showed no lingering affects of its disappointing loss to McEachern in the Corky Kell Classic. The Bulldogs beat East Saint Louis (Ill.) 41-0 on Saturday.

When I talked to head coach Bob Sphire a few weeks ago he cautioned that this year's team might not be as fast out of the gate. The Bulldogs were breaking in a new starting quarterback in Scotty Hosch and a whole new receiving corps along with several new offensive linemen.

The learning curve seems to be a less steep than he imagined. Hosch, who saw significant playing time as a back-up last year, looks like a three-year starter right now. Chad Scott has emerged as his go-to guy and the North offense appears just as potent as the previous seasons.

Too many penalties for Wolves

I got to check out the four-time defending state champion Buford Wolves on Friday. Lets just say the star-studded team lived up to the hype. My biggest concern with Buford is penalties. The Wolves committed 15 penalties for more than 100 yards.

Here are head coach Jess Simpson's thoughts on all the penalties.

"Last week we really cleaned it up and then we got out here tonight, part of is in the first half we probably played 30 different kids on offense and maybe 30 kids on defense," Simpson said. "When we're subbing, we're asking them to play at a certain speed, so we have to play a lot of kids. For a lot of our kids, a lot of them, that was the first time they ever played in a varsity game being in the mix in the rotation. That's what it is. It's high school football."

Welcome to America

There was a lot of hype this spring and summer over Central Gwinnett defensive end Francis Kallon. The senior moved from London last year and never played a down of football until this spring. Because of his size and speed, the 6-foot-6, 260-pounder drew a lot of attention from college recruiters. He lived up to that hype in his first game against third-year program Mountain View.

Kallon had a tackle for loss, a sack and blocked a punt on his first series of American football. Not a bad start.

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