All the region champs have been crowned, the seeds have been set and the brackets are all filled.

Now comes the really fun part — high school playoff football.

And for four local teams, that journey begins this upcoming week, as Carrollton, Haralson County and Bremen will all host their respective playoff openers, while Bowdon will hit the road as the only lower seed of the bunch.

Carrollton (9-1, 6-1 Region 6-AAA) and Bremen (8-2, 3-0 Region 6-A) both clinched region titles Friday night with wins over their region rivals, with the Trojans defeating Villa Rica, 21-7, and the Blue Devils handling Bowdon, 28-7.

Haralson County, meanwhile, may have played in the most entertaining game in the state Friday night at Cass, needing overtime to secure its first home playoff game in school history following the dramatic and awfully thrilling 55-54 overtime win over the Colonels.

Haralson County coach Frank Vohun said he only got about three hours of sleep after the madness that transpired in Cartersville and imagined that it was probably like that throughout much of Tallapoosa with the celebration lasting into the wee hours of the morning.

“I believe it was going on all morning and will probably be going on for a while,” Vohun said. “Shoot, you ain’t kidding. It’s going to be remembered for a long time, I’ve got a feeling.”

And for good reason. The Rebels (8-2, 5-2 Region 6-AAA) are in uncharted waters for their program, as they will play host to Apalachee (5-5), the No. 3 seed out of Region 8-AAA.

“I’m not sure if our kids really understand the full impact of what all that means to our school and our community,” Vohun said. “It’s not that they ignore it. They’ve just never been associated with anything like this. I don’t know if they understand the full impact of what’s happened, but they will. It may be a couple years down the road for them, but they will.”

For Carrollton, this is obviously nothing new. At the same time, it never gets old, either.

The Trojans will play host to Oconee County (4-6) Friday night at Grisham Stadium, something Carrollton coach Rayvan Teague said is always special for the seniors.

“It’s great to be at home, it’s great to be region champs,” Teague said. “These seniors are going out by winning three out of four region championships. I think that their combined record in the last four years in the regular season is 38-2, so they’ve done a lot to be remembered for, so I’m proud of them. As far as the playoffs go, there’s no easy track. You’ve got to go in and be the best on a Friday night like all Friday nights."

Bremen coach Ricky Tolleson is in that same boat with Teague, as the Blue Devils open against Social Circle (3-7) at home. Tolleson said playing at home is simply an advantage that speaks for itself.

“I’m proud of our whole team, but our seniors to be in the situation that they’re in, to be guaranteed to play at home another game, that’s really big for us,” Tolleson said. “It’s always the Blue Nation out and I tell you what, we had a tremendous crowd (Friday against Bowdon). It’s big to have that big home-field playoff game. Playing at home just makes it so much better.”

Unfortunately for Bowdon, who plays at Jefferson (7-3), a team that beat Bremen earlier in the season, things won’t be so ideal in its playoff opener.

Red Devil coach Dwight Hochstetler isn’t used to opening the playoffs on the road, and didn’t expect to have to this year, either.

“Well, not really,” Hochstetler said. “We was hoping to come in here and win (at Bremen) and, you know, be guaranteed of a home game next week, but it didn’t happen.”

Nonetheless, all four teams and communities will definitely have a big case of playoff fever as the temperatures drop and the action heats up.