WHO'S HOT: Evans. The Knights (3-0) are off to their best start since 2000. They've won four games in a row dating back to last season.

That's the team's longest amount of sustained success since a six-game winning streak spanning the end of 1999 and the beginning of the 2000 season.

WHO'S NOT: Butler. It's been 48 months since a 20-6 win against Harlem in 2004. That's the last time Butler (0-4) beat a team in its current region (3B-AAA). The Bulldogs have lost 15 games in a row by an average of 39 points per game.

It gets worse. Butler has lost 21 of its past 22 games.

BEST WIN LAST WEEK: Evans 28, Greenbrier 7: The pass rush, the turnovers and the vindication for last year's loss made it a perfect night for Evans.

BIG GAMES THIS WEEK

1. Swainsboro (3-0) at Laney (3-0): The Wildcats have never beaten Swainsboro. The winner should make playoff plans.

2. Jefferson County (1-1-1) at Screven County (3-1): It's a similar story here. These games will go a long way toward establishing the pecking order in Region 3-AA.

SHORT SHIFT: Consider this: Curtis Baptist's Brandon Jones carried the ball seven times for 102 yards last week.

The junior running back scored four touchdowns in one quarter and five plays' worth of work in a 63-0 win.

He also had 11 tackles, four tackles for losses and forced two fumbles at linebacker.

HEAVY LOAD: The latest numbers on Derrick Mathis, Thomas Jefferson Academy's calculator-crunching halfback, are in.

The 6-foot-2, 185-pound Jaguar has 24 carries for 701 yards and 11 touchdowns this season.

That's no misprint. The two-time state champion is averaging 29.2 yards per carry. The junior has 4,054 career yards on 282 carries. That's a 14.4 average per carry.

GOOD ATTITUDE: South Carolina quarterback commitment Aramis Hillary learned to live with adversity this fall.

Strom Thurmond's senior quarterback has seen two last-minute setbacks and a 17-0 blown lead account for his team's three defeats this year.

"I talked to my mom about it," he said last week. "She noticed I was down about our season."

Hillary explained how those losses hurt and how injuries to his receivers had lessened his ability to make big plays.

"She told me to stop thinking about all the bad luck I was having," he said. "She wanted me to pray for God to put me in the place where he wanted me to be. Not for God to put me where I wanted to be."

Hillary noticed his stress level went down after he did that. Then the Gamecocks came calling with his "dream offer" a week later.

"I've learned a little about life through this," he said. "Life can give you what you want, but sometimes it doesn't give you what you want when you want it. You've got to have a little faith."