Here are Oakland County’s top 10 football teams following the fourth week of the 2026 season:

1. Detroit Catholic Central (4-0 D1) — What the Shamrocks did to Warren De La Salle — a 53-0 shutout — was nothing short of impressive. The Pilots are young, but they’ve got talent and are capable of big plays, so to hold them scoreless is just another statement of where the bar is at for other Catholic League teams. They’ve got the first of back-to-back games against Toledo teams this week with a trip to St. John’s Jesuit. who lost 56-7 to St. Mary’s on Sept. 11.

2. Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice (4-0 D2) — After pulling out a close one against De La Salle, the Warriors had plenty of breathing room in their Catholic League crossover with Detroit U-D Jesuit, which resulted in a 35-0 victory. Rice gets its best test yet on Friday with a game against OLSM at Lawrence Tech.

3. Orchard Lake St. Mary’s (3-1 D2) — The Eaglets will get the best of the three Toledo teams near the end of the season when they play Central Catholic, but they’ve now handled business against the other two following last Friday’s 42-7 victory against St. Francis De Sales. St. Mary’s now begins a challenging four-game stretch that starts with Brother Rice, then goes De La Salle, Detroit Catholic Central and Toledo CC. Just coming out of that 3-1 would probably be enough to still be considered favorites to win it all again in D2.

4. Clarkston (4-0 D1) — It may not carry the weight it would have last year, but beating Rochester Adams 45-0 in Highlanders’ territory — something the Wolves failed to do twice two years ago — remains impressive. The Wolves will have one of the best resumes in the area if they can be 5-0 with wins over South Lyon, Stoney Creek, Adams and the team just below them on this list.

5. Oxford (4-0 D1) — The Wildcats handled Lake Orion, and they’ve shown they can thoroughly beat up on OAA White teams after outscoring Troy Athens and Rochester by a combined 91-17 margin. Now comes a trip to Clarkston for what could be the most important Red Division game of the season, but recent history has shown it would be foolish to call this some sort of unofficial decider. But whoever wins will come out as the best public school team in the county, that seems certain.

Football Roundup: Lake Orion bounces back, shuts out West Bloomfield 45-0

6. South Lyon (3-1 D2) — The Lions are now looking like the most formidable frontrunner in the Lakes Valley Conference, no? They’ve already scored a win over a perennial contender in Walled Lake Western, then they went to Milford and put it to the Mavericks. They’ll get what should be their third good consecutive test this Friday with a trip to face quarterback Elijah Cobb and North Farmington.

7. Northville (4-0 D1) — The Wildcats ran all over Novi and essentially put up a brick wall when it came to the Wildcats’ own rushing attack in last Friday’s 52-7 win. They’ll know that handling business against Plymouth and Dearborn Fordson the next two weeks could set up a game at Belleville that’ll decide the KLAA Black.

8. Stoney Creek (3-1 D1) — The OAA White continues to take shape in somewhat predictable fashion. The Cougars are the only team 2-0, while Rochester and Athens are 1-0 in the league and Bloomfield Hills and Troy both remain winless (0-2). If Stoney can spoil the Red Hawks’ Homecoming Night, it’ll host a game against the Falcons in Week 6 that should be for the division.

9. Walled Lake Western (3-1 D2) — Like the Minnesota Vikings, the Warriors didn’t have the prettiest weekend offensively, but better to win than not. Their 7-6 win at Farmington tied for the fewest points they’ve scored in a game since falling to eventual D3 state finalist Mason back in 2023. Still, they’re about to enter a stretch against a trio of opponents who are a combined 2-10, so that might provide a chance to work some things out and remain in the hunt for the LVC before back-to-back games at SL East and Milford to close the year.

10. South Lyon East (4-0 D2) — So how good are the Cougars? They’ve laid it to two Livonia teams (Stevenson, Churchill), and Franklin might be the best of the bunch, but while the Patriots (3-1) beat Farmington by 18 points, they lost to WL Western by 51. East’s season is going to come down to a pair of home games against Farmington and WL Western with a trip to South Lyon sandwiched between the two. In short, we won’t have to wait long to find out.