Colorado Football Defensive Player of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

Three weekly ballots, one Colorado football hub — sorting the defensive poll from its siblings

Sorting through si.com/high-school/colorado/football, a reader can land on three different weekly polls without immediately realizing it. The Colorado desk runs a combined ballot open to any position, a since-added offense-only edition, and this defense-only version, three separate weekly contests sharing one hub URL. Mixing them up costs a supporter a whole week's window.

The defensive split follows the template Maryland and Georgia confirmed in 2025, when both states broke a single weekly ballot into offense and defense editions. Colorado keeps all three on the shared hub rather than issuing a second standalone address, at least based on what's currently published. A defensive lineman, a linebacker, or a cornerback competes only against other defenders here. No quarterback's four-touchdown night crowds the list.

Why a defense-only ballot rewards a different Friday night than the offense poll does

An interception returned to the 3-yard line doesn't register on a stat sheet the way a 40-yard touchdown catch does. That's the reason a defense-only ballot exists apart from the offense one. Strip out rushing yards, completion rate, and touchdown totals, and what's left is tackles for loss, sacks, forced fumbles, pass breakups, a different Friday-night story than the one the offense ballot tells.

That distinction matters most in a lopsided game. A program that loses 35–10 but forces four turnovers and racks up six sacks has almost nothing to show on a combined or offense-only ballot. On the defensive edition, that same night is exactly the kind of performance that earns a nomination. The split doesn't just separate positions; it gives a losing scoreboard a second read.

Colorado's six CHSAA classes stay intact inside that narrower lens. A Class 6A pass rusher from Cherry Creek and a Class 2A linebacker from Sterling both qualify for the same weekly defensive list, judged by the same category of production rather than by enrollment. General mechanics for how fan-vote polls like this one work are covered in the online contest voting guide before narrowing to what's Colorado-specific.

Mechanics: what si.com confirms about the defensive ballot, and what still needs a live check

si.com/high-school/colorado/football remains the entry point for all three Colorado ballots, defensive included. There's no evidence of a second standalone URL carved out specifically for defense, the way Maryland runs its offense and defense polls on separate addresses.

Maryland's own defensive ballot publishes a Sunday 11:59 p.m. Pacific close on its dedicated page. Whether Colorado's defensive edition runs that same cadence, or something the Colorado desk sets on its own, isn't part of the public record here. The live article for the current week settles it, not a rule carried over from a different state's edition.

Front Range depth versus a smaller program's defensive front seven

Defense doesn't need a marquee running back to produce a nominee. A three-sack night from a 3A defensive end or a pick-six from a 2A cornerback travels the same distance on this ballot as anything Cherry Creek's front seven produces in the suburbs. That's a leveling the offense-only split doesn't offer quite as cleanly, since skill-position stats still correlate more tightly with a program's overall talent depth.

Front Range density is real, though. Cherry Creek, Grandview, Regis Jesuit, and Valor Christian field rosters deep enough that a standout defensive week shows up most Fridays, not just occasionally. Delta, out on the Western Slope in Class 3A, or Sterling on the Northeast Plains in Class 2A, needs a genuinely singular defensive performance, a shutout half, a multi-turnover game, to clear the same bar. There's no depth chart behind that one player if he has a quiet week the following Friday.

The Colorado contests directory lists what else is running statewide, sports and otherwise. Annual readers'-choice programs like Top of the Town and Best of Denver operate on a completely different yearly cycle from this weekly football ballot, worth knowing so a campaign doesn't confuse a once-a-year business vote with a Sunday football deadline.

Getting a defensive nominee onto the ballot, then running the week

Nominations for the defensive ballot appear to route through the same channel as Colorado's other weekly polls, the SBLive Colorado desk reviewing Friday-night results and submissions from coaches and program contacts. A defensive performance is easier to overlook than a skill-position highlight reel; a three-sack game rarely makes a highlight tape the way a touchdown does. Flagging the box score directly, tackles for loss, forced fumbles, interceptions, gives the desk something concrete instead of a vague sense that "he played well."

Once a defensive nominee is live, the same arithmetic that drives Colorado's other two football ballots applies here too: several independent channels beat one person refreshing a browser tab all night. A coaching staff sharing the link, parents forwarding it through a class contact list, and the school's own social account posting it separately each add reach a lone repeat voter can't match. Colorado hasn't published a fixed per-device cap for this specific edition, so checking that week's live article beats carrying over an assumption from the week before.

For pacing a push across a full season rather than one Sunday, the contest voting how-to hub covers the cadence. When the organic network is tapped out and the gap is still open, paid vote-support services built for sports fan polls exist for this exact format, paced, human-pattern delivery, not a script firing every few seconds. Reading the live si.com terms before running any outside push is worth doing each season, since the legal and platform-terms picture shifts.