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

What is the South Carolina High School Player of the Year poll?

The South Carolina High School Player of the Year is an annual football-specific fan-vote award operated by High School on SI — the prep sports vertical of Sports Illustrated, powered by SBLive Sports (part of the Minute Media network). Unlike the parallel weekly Athlete of the Week poll, the POY runs just twice per football calendar and carries statewide headline recognition across SCHSL media coverage. The award is strictly football; for multi-sport weekly recognition, see the South Carolina contest hub.

• Two editions each cycle: a Preseason POY fan vote published in August before the season opens, and an End-of-Season POY fan vote published in December or January after the SCHSL state championship games conclude.
• Each edition features approximately 15 nominees curated by the High School on SI South Carolina editorial staff from the state's top football performers or projected starters.
• Voting is free and uncapped for human supporters — no account, no per-hour limit, no registration required.
• The only hard restriction is no automated scripts or macros; athletes whose vote counts are generated by automated means are disqualified from that edition.
• Results are announced at si.com/high-school/south-carolina and shared across High School on SI's social media channels, generating statewide press coverage from SC prep sports reporters.
• The award is separate from — and decided differently than — the Gatorade South Carolina Player of the Year, which is chosen by an editorial panel rather than fan vote, and the MaxPreps South Carolina POY, also a panel selection.

What are the two editions — Preseason and End-of-Season — and how do they differ?

High School on SI runs two separate Player of the Year fan votes for South Carolina football each year. They serve different purposes, draw different voter energy, and require different campaign timing.

Preseason Player of the Year

The Preseason POY poll typically opens in early-to-mid August, before the SCHSL season kicks off, and closes around August 17 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time (verify the exact date on the active poll). Nominees are projected standouts — returning players who showed exceptional form the prior season or rising seniors with strong recruiting profiles. The 2025 preseason ballot included a Dutch Fork 6-foot-6 offensive lineman with a Michigan commitment and a four-star defensive back who chose South Carolina, among 15 contenders statewide.

Because preseason voting occurs during summer when school is out, booster club email lists and family social media networks are the primary mobilisation channels — team group chats are less active than during the regular season. Supporters who move first tend to build early leads that are difficult to close.

End-of-Season Player of the Year

The End-of-Season POY poll opens after the SCHSL state championship games conclude in November or December, and voting typically runs through approximately January 10 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time. Nominees are drawn from the season's actual statistical leaders and championship performers — typically 15 players representing multiple classifications and regions. The 2024 edition (voting closed Jan 10, 2025) featured a nominee who recorded 24 sacks and 35 tackles for loss among its defensive contenders, alongside several quarterbacks who threw for over 3,000 yards.

End-of-Season voting is the more competitive edition, because football boosters are still engaged from the postseason run and the school year is fully active — student groups, booster clubs, and class chats are all live channels during this window. Vote totals in competitive end-of-season editions regularly reach several thousand across the full multi-week window.

Which South Carolina schools and players have featured in the POY ballot?

High School on SI selects nominees from across all SCHSL classifications — 5A through 1A — and from every geographic region. The following table shows representative schools and notable contenders drawn from the 2024 and 2025 POY nomination cycles. These are factual entries confirmed from published ballot information; note that the fan-vote winner and the MaxPreps or Gatorade panel winner are separate results.

South Carolina's football landscape divides into two dominant talent corridors. The Upstate region — Spartanburg, Anderson, and Cherokee counties — generates a disproportionate share of nominees from well-funded, alumni-dense programmes like Dorman, Byrnes, T.L. Hanna, Gaffney, and Westside. The Midlands corridor running through Richland and Lexington counties — anchored by Dutch Fork's dynasty programme — is the single most recognised name in SCHSL football nationally. Dutch Fork's five consecutive 5A titles from 2016 through 2020 remain the longest streak in South Carolina high school football history, and the school's national recruiting profile means its athletes attract attention in any statewide poll.

How does voting for the South Carolina POY actually work?

The poll is embedded inside a dedicated article at si.com/high-school/south-carolina — either the preseason or end-of-season POY story published by the editorial team. It is free to access: no Sports Illustrated subscription, no SBLive account, no email address. Each nominee appears with name, school, position, and a brief performance summary alongside a live vote counter. For a general explanation of how online prep-sports polls work, the online contest voting guide covers the mechanics in full.

There is no hourly or daily cap on human votes in this poll. A supporter can visit the poll page, vote for their player, and vote again immediately — or vote multiple times per hour across the entire window. The only hard restriction, stated explicitly in the poll's own rules, is automated scripted voting: any tool that casts votes without a live human action is banned and results in disqualification of the athlete from that edition.

This unlimited-cap structure changes the competitive calculus significantly. A well-organised supporter network that sustains high human-vote volume across the full window will outperform a larger but less-activated community that fires one burst late. The most successful campaigns distribute the poll link immediately at launch, reinforce mid-week, and deliver a coordinated final push in the last 24–48 hours before close.

Votes are accepted from anywhere — family and friends in other states or countries can vote on the same poll without restriction. For programmes like Dutch Fork or Wando with graduates spread nationally, that geographic reach is a real asset in close competitive editions.

How do you build votes for your nominee in this South Carolina POY poll?

Because the vote cap is unlimited for human voters, the core variables are the size of your reachable network, the quality of your activation message, and whether you can sustain engagement across the full window rather than spiking once and fading. The first action is always getting the direct article link — not just the SI homepage — in front of every realistic supporter as soon as the poll opens. For a full tactics playbook applicable to any online poll, see our vote-building guide; the notes below address what specifically moves the needle in the South Carolina POY context.

Two South Carolina-specific patterns reliably produce the largest POY vote gaps. First, the Upstate's mill-town and industrial communities — Gaffney in Cherokee County, Duncan in Spartanburg County, Honea Path in Anderson County — carry deep inter-generational high school football identity. A single post in the right county-level Facebook group or text in the right church directory can activate several hundred votes from people who never watch prep sports regularly but respond to community pride. Second, Dutch Fork's alumni network is uniquely national: the Silver Foxes dynasty sent dozens of players to Power Five programmes, and those graduates follow SC prep sports closely even when living out of state.

When every realistic organic network has been activated and a nominee is still trailing in a competitive edition, some families and booster clubs use a paid outreach service to reach additional genuine voters. The key requirement for this poll is real human delivery — rapid-fire automated injections violate the explicit rules and result in disqualification. Our sports fan poll votes service is built around genuine, paced voter delivery matched to open windows like this one.

Rules and the buy-votes question for the South Carolina POY

High School on SI states its rules clearly: automated scripts, macros, bots, and any tool that casts votes without genuine human action are prohibited, and athletes receiving such votes are disqualified from that edition. Beyond that restriction, the published rules do not cap how many times a real human voter can vote, and they contain no language prohibiting paid outreach to real human audiences. For a broader discussion of how these distinctions apply across poll formats, the how-to voting guide covers the full landscape.

The practical distinction is the same as it is on any similar open-cap poll:

• Automated scripts and bots — tools that submit votes at machine speed without human interaction, often from data-centre IP addresses or flagged device fingerprints. Explicitly banned; result in disqualification.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — reaching additional genuine people through paid channels, each of whom votes manually. Structurally identical to a booster email reaching more families; nothing in the published rules prohibits it.

Since the POY carries no cash prize — the award is recognition and a published SI feature — the consequence of disqualification is losing that edition's accolade. There is no regulatory exposure for the athlete, family, or school. Families and booster clubs should weigh the reputational value of the win against the risk of disqualification if any external service uses automated methods, and should read the current terms on the active poll page before taking any action beyond organic outreach.

South Carolina POY voting timeline and football calendar

The South Carolina Player of the Year voting schedule maps directly onto the SCHSL football calendar. Understanding when each edition opens and closes — and how that timing intersects with booster community attention — is the most important logistical factor for any vote campaign.

Always verify the exact close dates on the active poll article at si.com/high-school/south-carolina — High School on SI occasionally adjusts the window based on SCHSL scheduling changes, holiday periods, and postseason timing. The dates above reflect the 2024–25 cycle pattern and may shift in future editions.

The Eastern time-zone translation matters for South Carolina supporters: 11:59 p.m. Pacific time is 2:59 a.m. Eastern time the following morning. A "Sunday night close" effectively extends into Monday morning in Columbia, Spartanburg, and Charleston — a detail that lets organised supporters fit in one more vote push on Sunday evening before the technical deadline.

For context on South Carolina prep sports polls more broadly — including the weekly Athlete of the Week fan vote at the same si.com platform — visit the South Carolina contest hub. For all US high school sports contest guides, see the USA contest index.