West Virginia High School Football Player of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

The thing most people get wrong about this poll

Most fans who find this poll expect a leaderboard of five or six names — the obvious stars from the biggest schools. What they get is 10 to 11 nominees drawn from every corner of West Virginia, with no enrollment floor and no classification filter. That is the part worth understanding before the season starts.

The October 2024 ballot is the clearest illustration on record. Eleven players. Cam Foley from Grafton — 18-of-32, 373 yards, 8 touchdowns in a 64-57 overtime game against Clay County. Robert Evans from Tolsia — 276 rushing yards and 6 touchdowns in a single game. Brennan Wack from Wheeling Park. Sam Marks AND Jared Reall from Tucker County on the same ballot at the same time. Small counties, mid-state, Northern Panhandle, the coalfields. The ballot does not sort by region or enrollment; it sorts by what the editors saw on the film.

What that means for voting: an 11-name field splits support more ways than a 6-name one. A community that organizes quickly — one where the poll link moves through a single connected network rather than fragmenting across dozens of group chats — can build a lead before larger programs register there's a race. The October ballot had no AAAA giants on it. Tucker County had two nominees. Tolsia is in Wayne County, 3,500 people in the city proper. That is what the data shows.

Two weeks, one recurring name, and what they reveal

The November 2024 ballot included Brennan Wack of Wheeling Park again — his second confirmed appearance on the poll that season. By then his cumulative numbers read 2,079 rushing yards and 26 touchdowns on 263 carries. SI's editors re-nominated him because the production kept coming. That is worth knowing because it confirms the poll's logic: it follows the stat line, week to week, and a player who keeps performing will keep appearing.

The November ballot also included Chance Barker of Princeton (the program that would win the 2025 Class AAA state title 36-35 over Nitro), Kade Koroneos of Wheeling Central Catholic (the 2025 Class A state champion, 56-34 over Clay-Battelle), Josh Maher of Oak Glen, Klypsan Wallace of Cameron, and Eli Bartley of Parkersburg South. Seven more names alongside Wack. That is a field that runs from the Northern Panhandle to the Kanawha Valley — and every nominee is competing for the same pool of votes from the same Sunday deadline.

The table confirms one pattern: Northern Panhandle programs — Wheeling Park, Wheeling Central Catholic, Oak Glen, Cameron — appear consistently. That region sends nominees regularly, which suggests either strong editorial coverage of Northern Panhandle games or strong performance concentration there. Both may be true. But Tolsia (Wayne County, southwestern WV) and Tucker County (eastern mountains) also appear, which means the editors are watching statewide.

The Sunday deadline and what it actually means for a campaign

This poll closes Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Not Monday. That distinction compresses the campaign window in a way that catches some supporters off guard — especially those who follow regional football polls that run through Monday night.

The practical shape of the week: SI posts the ballot Saturday or Sunday morning once the editors compile Friday's results. You have roughly 24 to 48 hours from publication to close. The supporters who see the link Sunday morning and think "I'll share it tonight" may be correct — but supporters who think "I'll push it Monday" have already missed the poll.

For schools in smaller counties, the Sunday window is actually an advantage. A Class A program in Tucker County or Pendleton County operates through tight community networks — the team group chat, the parents' booster thread, the church announcements that reach alumni still in the county. Those networks can move fast when activated Saturday night. A larger program in a metro area has more potential voters but also more friction in reaching them quickly. The Sunday close favors whoever gets the link distributed soonest, not whoever has the most people on a roster.

No per-vote limit is posted on the poll — SI's language confirms voting is not capped per person. That said, reaching more real people before Sunday night moves the number more reliably than repeat voting from a small set of devices. The how-to guide walks through how weekly fan-vote campaigns are structured; the full directory of West Virginia contests lives at /usa/west-virginia/, and the national index at /usa/ covers every state.