The national picture in high school football got a lot clearer this week. Here’s a look at the top-ranked teams in action, headlined by a season-opening showdown that both programs treated as a de facto national championship game.
Game of the Week: No. 1 St. John Bosco at No. 2 Bishop Gorman
St. John Bosco (Bellflower, Calif.) traveled to Bishop Gorman’s Fertitta Field in Las Vegas on Friday night for the two teams’ first meeting since 2016, with both programs entering unbeaten in the series’ history between them at the top of the national rankings. Bishop Gorman entered the night having never lost to St. John Bosco, holding a 2-0 all-time edge in the series, including wins in 2014 and 2016.
Final score: MaxPress
Bishop Gorman entered the week 1-0 after a 41-0 win over Somerset Academy Losee in a season opener that was called at halftime due to lightning, with the Gaels rotating two quarterbacks — senior Chance Thomas and junior Ace Amina — as they prepared for the Bosco showdown.
Other Top-Ranked Teams to Watch
- Buford (Ga.) — The reigning 2025 national champions opened defense of their title at home against Gainesville, one of the season’s marquee Georgia matchups.
- Duncanville (Texas) — Opened its season on the road against a ranked opponent as one of the sport’s traditional Texas powers.
- St. Thomas Aquinas (Fla.) — Entered the week ranked in the national top 5, with Florida once again fielding one of the deepest groups of nationally-ranked programs.
- Thompson (Ala.) — Renewed its rivalry with Central (Phenix City), a rematch of what was arguably Alabama’s game of the year last season, when Thompson won a 35-34 playoff thriller.
Why This Week Matters
Unlike college football, high school football has no playoff system that crowns one undisputed national champion — instead, publications like MaxPreps, High School Football America, and USA Today each name their own mythical national champion at season’s end, based largely on how teams perform in exactly these kinds of early marquee matchups. That’s what made this week’s St. John Bosco–Bishop Gorman game so significant: an August loss can shape a team’s national championship case just as much as anything that happens in November.
Check our Scores page for full results from this week’s games, and our Rankings page for the latest Top 10.