Who was the Section III football player of the week? (Finals): How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Section III football player of the week finals ballot is

This page covers the finals round of "Who was the Section III football player of the week?", a public fan vote run by Section III for high school football in its New York coverage area. Section III is the athletic section that administers high school sports in its region of the state, and the player of the week program is one of the ways it surfaces standout performances during the fall season.

Crowdsignal, the platform behind the poll.fm domain, carries the balloting. That is where the weekly ballots live during the season and where the finals ballot sits once the regular weekly rounds have produced their nominees. The voting URL for the finals ballot is poll.fm/16292020, and each season's rounds occupy their own addresses on the same platform.

The program at a glance

Because the ballot names individual high school players, this reference page deliberately does not reprint nominee names. The current field of nominees shows on the live ballot itself, and the percentage share beside each nominee updates as submissions arrive. For a supporter, the practical picture is simple: Section III provides the program and the nominees, Crowdsignal provides the voting machinery, and the fall calendar provides the window in which the whole series runs.

One point on naming deserves a note. A research result once attributed coverage of this vote to a Syracuse-based publisher, but that attribution conflicts with the organizer held here, so this page states only what the ballot itself supports: Section III runs the program, and Crowdsignal hosts the vote.

When the finals ballot runs and which seasons are confirmed

The program is annual in shape. Confirmed editions exist for three seasons, 2020, 2023 and 2025, years that the poll.fm pages themselves pin down, with the 2025 season the most recent run. The pattern points to 2026 as the next one, which would continue the program's return with each high school football season.

Within a season, the calendar tracks the sport. Voting activity across the series falls between September and November, which covers the regular season weeks and the postseason run when Section III football crowns its champions. The finals ballot is the closing round of that sequence, appearing after the weekly ballots have narrowed the field.

The honest gap in the picture is the day-level calendar. The ballot page stays silent on the finals round's opening and closing days, and any nomination dates tied to the round are likewise absent, so both should be read from the live poll before the round begins. That matters more for the finals than for the weekly rounds, because a finals window is short and a supporter who learns about it late has little time to act.

The three confirmed years deserve careful reading. A gap between 2020 and 2023 suggests the series was not continuous across every season in between, so treating it as guaranteed to appear every fall overstates the picture. What is safe to say is that the program has run in multiple seasons, that the most recent is 2025, and that the poll.fm platform makes each round's status visible: a live ballot accepts submissions, and a closed one displays its final tallies and accepts nothing further.

How a supporter votes on the finals ballot

Voting works simply: it is a public fan ballot. A supporter opens the finals ballot on poll.fm, sees the nominee list for the round, selects one nominee and submits. The ballot presents each option as a player paired with the school that player represents, so the choice is made on performance and loyalty rather than on any ticket or registration step.

Submission happens directly on the page. Crowdsignal polls register a pick when the submit control is used, and the page responds with a confirmation state once the vote is in. No login, no email step and no payment appear to be required, which fits the public-vote design the weekly rounds use all season.

The rules around repeat voting are the part a careful supporter should read on the live page. Section III posts no stated ceiling on repeat voting during the finals round. Crowdsignal polls commonly apply some form of duplicate protection, but what this specific ballot enforces, whether a cookie check or a wait period between submissions, is not displayed anywhere the public can read in advance.

For anyone organizing support around a nominee, the practical advice follows from that uncertainty. Ask supporters to vote honestly through the front door, share the ballot link directly, and let each person follow whatever the on-page instructions say about returning. Reaching out to a school community is the channel this program is built for, and the percentage display on the live ballot makes the effect of a coordinated push visible in real time, which is part of what makes the finals round engaging for the schools involved.

How this finals ballot sits beside other New York player of the week votes

New York has no shortage of high school athlete ballots, and this program occupies a specific corner of that landscape. It is the Section III finals round, meaning it covers the schools under one athletic section and closes out a season of weekly votes, rather than running as a standalone award.

The neighbouring programs on this site cover other parts of the state and other sports. The Hudson Valley New York High School Football Player of the Week covers a different football region downstate. The New York Section 1 High School Football Player of the Week serves the Section 1 territory, a separate athletic section with its own schools and its own ballot series. The New York High School Football Player of the Week takes a broader view of the state's football scene.

Basketball runs on a similar model in other markets. The lohud Boys Basketball Player of the Week and the Lohud Girls Basketball Player of the Week serve the winter season with the same weekly rhythm, and the Buffalo News Prep Talk Girls Athlete of the Week brings a newsroom publisher to the format for western New York.

What distinguishes the Section III finals ballot from all of these is its position in a series. Where a standalone weekly vote starts and ends inside one news cycle, this ballot is the payoff round that the season's earlier votes feed into, and its host platform, Crowdsignal, carries the whole series on consecutive poll addresses through the fall.

Strengthening support for a nominee in the finals round

A finals ballot rewards speed and concentration. Because the round closes the series and the live page shows each nominee's percentage share, a school community that mobilises early can watch its position move with every batch of submissions. The ballot takes a pick per submission on poll.fm, and Section III posts no published stance on outside help, which makes the on-page instructions the only written guidance in play.

The strongest organic channel is the one this program already assumes: the nominee's own school. Sharing the ballot link through team accounts, class groups and family networks reaches the people with a reason to vote, and a short message asking for one submission before the close typically outperforms a generic blast. Since the closing day is not printed on the page, an early push is also the safer push.

On the question of purchased support, keep the framing honest. No published organizer policy addresses bought participation for this ballot, and any service in that space carries its own terms and risks. Anyone weighing that route should first read how to get more votes online and understand the mechanics of Crowdsignal ballots before deciding anything. What is plain is that the finals round is short, the display is public, and the schools that treat the ballot as a community event are the ones whose numbers climb on screen.