StarNews High School Football Preseason Offensive Player of the Year Poll: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the StarNews preseason offensive player of the year poll is

StarNews, the news publisher serving the Wilmington area of North Carolina, runs the High School Football Preseason Offensive Player of the Year Poll as a reader ballot. It asks supporters to pick the offensive player they expect to stand out across the coming high school football season, before any of those games have settled the question on the field. That preseason framing is what separates it from the week-by-week player of the week ballots other North Carolina publishers run once games begin.

The vote itself is a plain public poll carried on Crowdsignal, the poll.fm platform. The live ballot address is poll.fm/15836767, and the page lists its nominees as paired answers, each player named beside his school. Schools appearing on recent ballots include Hoggard, New Hanover, Ashley, West Brunswick and North Brunswick, which gives a picture of the Wilmington-area footprint the poll draws from.

Because the nominees are high school students, this page describes the program by its publisher, its sport and its market rather than spotlighting any individual player. The facts a supporter needs are mechanical ones: who runs the ballot, where it lives, and when it closes.

The dated record for the StarNews preseason poll

Confirmed editions of the poll ran in 2022 and 2025. The 2025 ballot page is titled as the 2025 StarNews High School Football Preseason Offensive Player of the Year Poll and now carries a closed notice, so the edition's outcome is settled even though the page remains reachable. StarNews's own coverage of the current cycle promotes the same poll again and carries the working close for this preseason.

That close is the page's anchor date: voting runs through Thursday, Aug. 20 at 11:59 p.m., in the publisher's words, with supporters invited to vote as often as they like until then. The window sits entirely in August, which fits the preseason label, since the poll wraps before the season's results can make the argument for anyone.

What the publisher has not printed is a roster of offensive positions or eligibility notes attached to the ballot itself; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The nominee list changes with each edition, so the names visible on the closed 2025 page should be read as that year's field, not a standing roster.

For recurrence, the honest summary is that 2022 and 2025 are the confirmed edition years and the current cycle is promoted in the publisher's 2026 coverage. Whether a ballot ran in the years between those markers is not stated anywhere by StarNews.

How a supporter votes in the StarNews poll today

Voting takes four plain actions. A supporter opens the ballot at poll.fm/15836767, reads the paired list of players and schools, selects the radio button beside the chosen nominee, and presses the vote button. Crowdsignal registers the choice at once and the running tally updates, which is why supporters watching a close race can see movement after every round of votes.

StarNews's own coverage sets the pace: vote now, as often as you like, until Thursday, Aug. 20 at 11:59 p.m. There is no published per-supporter ceiling, no printed cooldown and no eligibility text on the ballot page. The page also does not state whether an account is required, and the publisher's coverage does not mention one, so the working assumption is that the vote button is open to any visitor.

Because repeat voting is invited in the publisher's own words, the practical play for a nominee's backers is rhythm rather than a single push: return to the ballot across the August window, and ask teammates, classmates and family to do the same. When the close passes, the ballot locks, the page gains a closed notice in the pattern the 2025 edition shows, and StarNews reports the result through its high school football coverage.

Anyone supporting a nominee should treat the ballot page itself as the authority for the current cycle's rules, since the publisher reprints the window and the voting invitation with each new edition.

Where this poll sits among North Carolina reader ballots

StarNews's preseason poll is one of several public reader ballots run by North Carolina publishers, and its neighbours help explain what makes it distinct. The Charlotte Observer Athlete of the Week, plus the boys and girls editions the same paper runs for its high school readers, follows a weekly cycle once seasons are underway, covering a different market in the state. The Greensboro News & Record Player of the Week serves the Piedmont the same way.

Statewide, the Tatum & Atkinson Scholar Athlete of the Week blends athletics with academics, and the baseball weekly that covers the whole state serves a spring sport rather than fall football. Every one of those ballots reports to a separate publisher on a separate schedule.

The StarNews poll differs on three counts. It is preseason, so it asks for a prediction rather than a reward for a past week's performance. It is offensive-player specific, narrowing the field to one side of the ball. And its window is a single August sprint ending Thursday, Aug. 20 at 11:59 p.m., not a rolling weekly reset. Supporters who follow several of these ballots will recognise the shared shape, a publisher, a Crowdsignal or similar ballot, and a reader vote, while the preseason framing is what this program alone carries.

Comparisons across the state's ballots are easiest on the Charlotte Observer Athlete of the Week page and the Greensboro News & Record Player of the Week page.

Strengthening support in a short preseason window

A preseason ballot rewards early organisation, because the whole window fits inside August and ends Thursday, Aug. 20 at 11:59 p.m. The mechanic StarNews gives supporters is unlimited repeat voting, stated in the publisher's own coverage, so the first move for any nominee's camp is simply to build a daily habit around the ballot at poll.fm/15836767 rather than voting once and leaving.

The second lever is the school community. Each nominee is listed beside his school, which makes the natural audience easy to identify: teammates, the student section, booster families and the school's own social accounts. A link to poll.fm/15836767 passed through those channels reaches readers with a built-in stake in the result.

On outside help, StarNews prints no policy about purchased votes on its ballot page, so there is no organiser rule to quote either way. What is true is the mechanic itself: the publisher invites as many votes as a supporter likes, which is the same behaviour a coordinated push amplifies. For a fuller picture of methods that fit a short window, see how to get more votes online, and check the service side at buy votes online before deciding anything.