Iowa Class 2A Football Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Iowa Class 2A Football Player of the Year on High School on SI?

The Iowa Class 2A Football Player of the Year is a dedicated annual fan-vote award run by High School on SI — the prep-sports vertical of Sports Illustrated, which absorbed SBLive Sports in the early 2020s — at si.com/high-school/iowa. While the platform's overall Iowa Football Player of the Year spans all IHSAA classifications, the Class 2A award isolates roughly 48 programs in the second-smallest eleven-player division, giving small-school northwest, north, and east Iowa communities their own ballot.

Two confirmed vote cycles exist: an end-of-season poll closing November 30, and a separate preseason poll (first confirmed in 2025) running in August. Both use the same free public-vote mechanics — no Sports Illustrated account, no login, no fee.

Confirmed 2024 nominees and the Class 2A state championship result

The 2024 High School on SI Iowa Class 2A Football Player of the Year ballot included the following confirmed nominees. The final vote winner was not announced in publicly available results at the time of writing — the organizer publishes winner articles separately on si.com/high-school/iowa after the poll closes.

The 2024 Class 2A state championship game at the UNI-Dome ended with West Lyon (Inwood) defeating Spirit Lake 42-7 on November 21-22, 2024. West Lyon's blowout in Cedar Falls confirmed their northwest Iowa dynasty status — the Wildcats had previously won multiple state titles and entered 2024 as one of the Siouxland Conference's elite programs.

Historical Class 2A state championship context

Class 2A school geography — programs, conferences, and regions

Iowa's Class 2A spans the full geographic breadth of the state, from Inwood in the northwest corner to Davenport in the southeast. Unlike 5A programs concentrated in Des Moines's CIML suburbs, Class 2A communities are distributed through small cities and rural towns where football is a central fall institution. The table below maps key 2A schools to their conference and region.

The geographic spread matters for fan-vote strategy. Class 2A towns are typically small enough that the entire community — parents, alumni, local businesses, church congregations — can be reached through a single well-placed Facebook post or group text chain. Monticello's 2023 mobilisation for Preston Ries illustrated exactly this dynamic: a compact east-Iowa community generated a statewide vote total that beat larger programs with deeper raw enrollment by leveraging tight personal networks.

Van Meter's classification journey

Van Meter merits special attention: the program won back-to-back Class 1A championships in 2022 and 2023 before enrollment growth pushed them into Class 2A. Their arrival added a championship-caliber program to the 2A field and makes Van Meter one of the more closely watched POY nomination sources as they establish themselves in the higher class.

How does the Class 2A football voting work — mechanics and timing

Each Iowa Class 2A Football Player of the Year poll is published as a standalone article on si.com/high-school/iowa. The article title typically follows the pattern "Vote: Who is the Iowa Class 2A Football Player of the Year?" for the end-of-season poll, or "Vote: Who is the 2025 Iowa High School Football Class 2A Preseason Player of the Year?" for the August ballot. Editors list finalists with performance summaries; readers vote by clicking a name in the embedded widget — no account, no subscription, no email required.

The annual POY polls on High School on SI do not publish a per-hour vote cap — unlike the weekly Iowa Athlete of the Week poll on the same platform. This means the primary constraint is the total window (roughly 1-3 weeks) rather than an hourly cooldown. Supporters can cast multiple votes in sequence. Live vote totals update in the widget, letting communities track the gap and time their push accordingly.

For a detailed breakdown of how to organise a sustained voting campaign for any SI-style poll, see our contest voting how-to guide. For Iowa-specific context on all state voting contests, visit the Iowa contest hub.

Voting strategy for Class 2A communities — what actually moves the needle

Class 2A communities have structural advantages in fan polls that Class 5A metro programs often lack: tighter networks, higher per-capita engagement, and a shared identity built around Friday-night football as a town institution rather than one activity among many. West Lyon's northwest Iowa community, Monticello's east-Iowa alumni base, and Carroll Kuemper's west-central Catholic school network are each capable of generating vote surges that outlast raw enrollment advantages.

The core organic playbook for 2A programs

• Activate the booster club immediately. A booster email list of 200-500 households sending the direct poll link in the first hour is the baseline. Include the athlete's stats, a photo, and one clear call to action: "Click this link, vote, vote again, and share."
• Hit the community Facebook ecosystem. Iowa's rural towns have active local Facebook groups — "West Lyon Community," "[Town] Iowa Parents," school alumni pages — where a poll share reaches adults who don't follow the athlete's personal accounts. These groups are the fastest organic multiplier in small-town Iowa.
• Cross-school solidarity within the conference. Siouxland Conference coaches and families have voted for West Lyon candidates even from rival towns when community pride in a northwest Iowa player competing for a statewide award takes over. Framing the vote as "Iowa's northwest corner vs. metro programs" activates regional identity beyond the home fanbase.
• Closing-day push is mandatory. Send a reminder to everyone who voted earlier with the remaining time and current standings. A single coordinated push in the final 12 hours consistently closes large gaps in polls without per-hour caps.

When organic reach has been fully activated and a gap remains too large to close through community networks alone, some families and supporters choose paid promotion. For this type of media poll, a service delivering real votes from real people — not automated scripts — is the relevant option. See our sports fan poll votes service and the full contest voting guide for what cap-matched, paced delivery looks like in practice.

The Class 2A football award in context — IHSAA structure and the road to Cedar Falls

Iowa runs one of the most structured small-school football systems in the country. The IHSAA's seven-division format — five eleven-player classes (5A through A) plus eight-player — ensures that a 200-student school in northwest Iowa competes only against schools of similar size, all the way through the state playoffs at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

Class 2A's roughly 48 programs span the middle tier of that system. The four teams that reach the UNI-Dome semifinals and finals each November are the culmination of a full regular season plus a bracketed state playoff. The Player of the Year candidates are almost always drawn from that final four, plus exceptional performers whose teams fell earlier but who posted standout individual numbers.

The Class 2A award sits alongside the Iowa High School Player of the Year (overall, cross-class) and the weekly Iowa Athlete of the Week poll as the three main fan-vote football recognitions on High School on SI's Iowa platform. Understanding which ballot a player is on — and which poll is currently open — is the first step to effective vote mobilisation. For the full landscape of Iowa prep sports fan votes and all-state recognitions, visit the Iowa contest hub.