Georgia high school football program forced to forfeit 10 wins from 2024 season

The Appling County (Ga.) football team will be forced to forfeit every win it had during the 2024 Georgia high school season due to the use of an ineligible player, according to a report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Todd Holcomb. The team won 10 games and a region title before falling in the Class 2A state semifinals to Carver 49-6.

The Pirates, who won the Class AA Region 3 championship, lost an appeal this past week and now will be counted as winless for the 2024 season.

Their 2024 victories came against Cook, Crisp County, Fitzgerald, Pierce County, Stephens County, Swainsboro, Suwannee, Wayne County, Carver (regular season) and Tattnall County.

With Appling County’s forfeiture of those games, Pierce County can now claim the region title — its sixth in the past seven seasons.

The Pirates’ program has been one of Georgia’s best over the past six years, winning a total of 60 games. Between 2019 and 2024, the Pirates averaged 10 wins per season and made multiple deep runs into the state playoffs.

As of Wednesday, the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) has not disclosed why the player was ineligible. The school announced via social media on Wednesday morning that it had exhausted all its appeals and would move forward with the state body’s decision.

Georgia joins long list of states with forfeitures

Appling County joins a growing number of high school programs across the country who forfeited games this season due to the use of ineligible players. Baton Rouge University Lab (La.) was stripped of seven regular-season wins in November.

Schools in Texas, Florida and Maryland — including multiple state contenders — were forced to vacate wins due to similar investigations into ineligible players.

In early November, Matt Stepp of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football reported that the Dallas Independent School District ruled Samuell High would forfeit each of its seven wins after using ineligible players.

The Spartans were 7-2 heading into their final regular season game of the season. Head coach Danny Cobbin was later suspended for two years due to multiple rules violations with his program.

In Florida, one of the top high school football programs in the country, Miami Central, was retroactively forced to forfeit nine games because of the use of an ineligible player, the Florida High School Athletic Association ruled.

Miami Central self-reported the violation to the FHSAA, according to SI High School’s Andy Villamarzo. In accordance with FHSAA’s bylaw 10.2.1, the Rockets’ record was changed to 0-9 with the postseason bracket reveal less than a week away.

That followed a report from the Orlando Sentinel that The First Academy (TFA) was found guilty of multiple rule violations. As a result, the Royals will be on restrictive probation until Dec. 20, 2025. That decision means forfeiting all their wins during last year’s Florida high school football season and having to sit out the playoffs in 2024 and 2025.