Nebraska High School Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Nebraska High School Player of the Year award?

The Nebraska High School Player of the Year is an annual fan-vote award administered by High School on SI — the SBLive editorial network operating on Sports Illustrated's platform at si.com/high-school/nebraska. At the conclusion of each sport season, SBLive's Nebraska staff compile a shortlist of top-performing athletes from across the state's NSAA-sanctioned classes and open a free public poll for Nebraska fans to decide the winner.

• The award runs sport by sport — football, basketball, baseball, softball, and other NSAA sports each receive their own end-of-season ballot.
• All NSAA classifications are eligible: Class A through D, plus 8-man and 6-man football programmes from Nebraska's rural communities.
• In the 2024 football cycle, 4,690 total votes were cast and Gretna QB Michael Knudsen won with 60.19% — a confirmed, publicly announced result from si.com.
• No account, subscription, or personal data is required to vote; the poll is free and open to any visitor at si.com/high-school/nebraska.
• The award is a digital credential: a published SI byline naming the winner, visible to recruiters, coaches, and community members who search the athlete's name.

Which Nebraska schools and classes have produced Player of the Year contenders?

Because the Nebraska High School Player of the Year spans all NSAA classifications, contenders appear from every corner of the state — from Omaha's Class A powerhouses to single-school Class D communities in the Panhandle and the Sandhills. The table below maps the primary schools and their competitive context.

Class A schools — concentrated in the Omaha metro and Lincoln — dominate football and basketball nominations, given their larger enrolments, deep alumni networks, and professional-family communities that mobilise effectively for online polls. The Omaha metro alone houses seven or eight Class A programmes, each with thousands of potential voters.

However, Class B and C programmes regularly break through when a generational talent emerges in a sport like wrestling, baseball, or cross country, where rural Nebraska schools have historically punched above their enrolment weight. The statewide scope of the award — covering roughly 250 NSAA-member schools — means even a small-town athlete with a devoted county-wide support network can challenge a city programme for the vote.

How does the Nebraska Player of the Year fan vote actually work?

The Nebraska High School Player of the Year vote is a free online poll hosted at si.com/high-school/nebraska. When a sport season ends, the SBLive Nebraska editorial team reviews statewide performance data — stats, game results, state tournament outcomes — and compiles a nominee shortlist. That shortlist goes live as an open fan poll, with no subscription, no account, and no personal information needed to participate.

Voting mechanics at a glance

• Go to si.com/high-school/nebraska and find the active Player of the Year poll for the sport in question.
• Click or tap the nominee's name to cast your vote — the widget confirms the submission immediately.
• Unlike hourly-cap newspaper polls, the SBLive platform does not publish a stated per-device hourly limit; multiple votes from the same device may be possible, but the platform explicitly prohibits automated scripts and macros.
• Live vote totals are visible throughout the window, allowing supporters to track standings in near-real-time.
• The poll closes on a deadline published on the active poll page; after close, si.com publishes a result article naming the winner and their vote percentage.

For a broader overview of how Sports Illustrated's SBLive platform runs these state-level fan polls across the country, see our guide to online contest voting mechanics. For the Nebraska-specific weekly award (a different poll with different cadence), visit the Nebraska contest guide hub.

How is the Nebraska Player of the Year winner chosen, and what do they receive?

The outcome is decided entirely by fan vote total. Once SBLive sets the nominee shortlist — using editorial judgment, not a scoring algorithm — the result is purely democratic: whichever athlete accumulates the highest number of votes when the poll closes wins, with no editorial override or weighted panel score applied after the ballot opens.

The 2024 Nebraska Football Player of the Year result illustrates the competitive scale. Michael Knudsen of Gretna finished with 60.19% of 4,690 votes — a decisive margin that reflects a well-organised campaign across Gretna's large Sarpy County community, not merely his on-field résumé (3,074 passing yards, 29 touchdown passes in the regular season). The final vote count and percentage were published by si.com as the official result.

What the winner receives:

• A published si.com article naming them Nebraska High School Player of the Year for that sport and season — a Gannett-scale byline searchable by coaches, recruiters, and admissions staff.
• Social media recognition through SI's high school sports accounts, amplifying reach beyond Nebraska-local audiences.
• A credential that complements (and differs from) NSAA all-state selections, Gatorade state player of the year, and other editorial awards — this one is explicitly fan-voted and community-driven.

Nebraska Player of the Year results and contenders by sport

The Nebraska High School Player of the Year award covers multiple sports across the NSAA calendar. The table below summarises confirmed and notable results where publicly available, plus the typical sports covered each season.

Nebraska sports calendar and Player of the Year timing

Football is the highest-volume POY vote in Nebraska — the 4,690 ballots cast in 2024 reflect the sport's dominance in state culture, particularly in the Omaha metro and across the rural Class B communities of the Platte Valley, Heartland, and Mid-Nebraska conferences. Basketball and volleyball votes tend to draw smaller totals but are no less competitive when a standout Class A or Class B athlete makes the ballot.

How do you get more votes for the Nebraska Player of the Year poll?

Because the SBLive platform does not apply a strict hourly-per-device cap, the core strategy for the Nebraska Player of the Year differs from hourly-cap newspaper polls: breadth of reach beats voting-device arithmetic. The goal is to get the direct poll link in front of every realistic voting network as fast as possible after the poll opens, then sustain awareness until close.

For a complete general guide to building vote totals in online polls, see our vote-getting how-to guides. Nebraska-specific tactics that consistently produce results:

• Sarpy County and Omaha metro school networks — the Gretna, Elkhorn, Bellevue, and Millard communities have large, professionally networked parent populations active on Facebook, Instagram, and school-district app platforms. A single post from a booster club officer reaches thousands.
• Alumni groups — Class A programmes like Creighton Prep and Omaha Westside have decades-deep alumni networks; LinkedIn and alumni Facebook groups convert well because former students search for reasons to re-engage with their high school community.
• Rural Class B/C networks — smaller towns (Kearney, Norfolk, Columbus, Hastings) have concentrated, tight-knit communities where every adult in a county may know the athlete personally. A local radio station mention, a church bulletin share, or a post in a county-specific Facebook group can turn out hundreds of votes from a 10,000-person catchment.
• NSAA booster club email lists — many Nebraska athletic boosters maintain email lists of hundreds to thousands of parent and community contacts; a single blast with a direct poll link is the highest-efficiency action available.
• Timing the push — unlike a Thursday-close newspaper poll, the SBLive window can run for one to two weeks; the final 48 hours before close are disproportionately high-activity. A second reminder message timed 48–72 hours before the deadline consistently produces the largest single-day vote spike.

For campaigns where community reach alone leaves a nominee trailing, some families use a paid vote-promotion service to extend reach to real additional voters. Our sports fan poll votes service delivers paced, genuine ballots that match the platform's expected traffic patterns — not automated scripts that trigger removal. Read the current poll terms at si.com before choosing any external service.

Rules, fairness, and the buy-votes question for the Nebraska POY poll

The Nebraska High School Player of the Year poll operates under the SBLive platform's standard rules, which explicitly prohibit automated tools: macros, scripts, bots, and any method that bypasses the natural voting interface are disallowed. The stated consequence is vote disqualification — flagged ballots are removed from the tally. For general context on how online poll rules work and what the legality landscape looks like, our full guide covers the relevant frameworks.

Two categories of activity are worth distinguishing clearly:

• Automated scripts / bots — software that fires rapid-volume requests without human action. These violate the platform's stated terms, produce detectable traffic anomalies, and result in the associated votes being stripped from the count.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — real people casting genuine votes via the normal poll interface, reached through a paid promotion channel rather than a family email chain. This is structurally identical to a booster club email that reaches 500 additional supporters — it is fans voting, from a different origination channel.

Whether the second category satisfies the spirit of the contest terms is a decision each entrant must make by reading the current official poll page. The Nebraska High School Player of the Year carries no cash prize and no NSAA regulatory standing — the risk is reputational, not legal. Families and athletic programmes should weigh the recognition value of the award against that context honestly.