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

The label says "Athlete" — the ballot says football

The thing most voters miss before they click over to the Louisiana SI poll: it is not called the football Player of the Week. It is the "Louisiana High School Athlete of the Week" — a title that implies track, volleyball, swimming, any sport at all. In practice, during the football season from August through December, between 87 and 100 percent of nominees any given week are football players. The Sept. 22, 2025 ballot had 34 football nominees and one volleyball player. This is the de-facto Louisiana statewide football POTW fan vote; the label is a branding choice, not a content description.

That matters operationally. Voters searching for a "football player of the week poll Louisiana" or "Louisiana prep football fan vote" may not immediately find a poll that never uses those words in its title. The navigation path is si.com/high-school/louisiana, then the current "Athlete of the Week" article, then the embedded ballot. No account required. Voting closes Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Pacific — the full Saturday-evening-to-Sunday-night window is the contest.

What four confirmed ballot weeks reveal about this poll's range

The Sept. 8, 2025 field is the most statistically striking on record. Seven nominees, and the top performer was Aymaud Sykes of Grant Parish — 25 carries, 420 rushing yards, 10 touchdowns. On the same ballot: Sedrick Wilson of Jena (325 yards, 4 TDs, plus a 52-yard receiving score), Jacobi Boudreaux of John Curtis Christian (218 yards, 4 TDs on 11 carries), and Jeremy Patton of Zachary (217 yards, 2 TDs). All four were running backs posting 200-plus-yard games in the same week across different classifications and regions of the state.

The December 8 field — the final playoff week, played in the shadow of the state championships at the Superdome — looked different. Trevin Simon of Ascension Catholic put up 364 yards and 6 TDs on 35 carries. But the ballot also included Ethan Lentz of Archbishop Shaw: 12 tackles, one sack, and three interceptions — one returned for a touchdown. And Kaleb Simon of Lafayette Christian with five interceptions and 12 tackles. Louisiana's editors nominate defensive standouts at a rate that changes the strategic calculus: a shutdown cornerback can appear alongside the state's top rushers on the same list, and voters who only track offensive stats may underestimate who can win.

The confirmed winner between these two ballots is Collin Rideau of Opelousas in November. What the December result tells us about vote totals and margins, we do not have on record — SI Louisiana does not publish raw counts. What the field confirms is that the ballot scope runs from Acadiana to the North Louisiana hill country to the New Orleans metro in a single week.

Louisiana's classification split and what it means on a fan ballot

LHSAA uses a Select / Non-Select divide rather than the traditional 1A–6A enrollment tiers most states use. Non-Select schools (public) compete in Divisions I through IV by enrollment. Select schools (private and parochial) run a parallel Division I–IV ladder. The two tracks meet only at the state championships — which since 2025 are held mid-December at Caesars Superdome.

On the SI ballot the line disappears entirely. The December 8 field placed Ascension Catholic (Select), Archbishop Shaw (Select), St. Augustine (Select), and Lafayette Christian (Select) alongside public-school nominees — all on one ballot, competing on vote count alone. The 2025 state championship results reflect what happens when those tracks finally do meet: Edna Karr (Div I Select) defeated St. Augustine 49–14, completing a 27-game win streak. But on the weekly fan poll, those schools' supporters compete for the same votes from the moment the ballot opens.

That structural fact matters for any campaign planning. A parochial school in New Orleans draws from a tight alumni and current-family network that can be mobilized quickly through a single parish or alumni group channel. A large public program in Ouachita Parish (2025 Div I Non-Select champions) draws from a broader but more dispersed community. Neither network type wins by default — the question is which one organizes faster in a four-to-six-day Sunday window.

Running a real campaign in Louisiana's Sunday window

The Louisiana poll's window runs roughly Monday or Tuesday (when the ballot publishes) through Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Pacific. That is a meaningfully different rhythm from the Dallas / North Texas ballot, which closes Monday and gives campaigns an extra overnight. Here, Sunday is the finish line, which means a well-timed Saturday evening post and a Sunday noon reminder are worth more than anything sent on a weekday.

Getting a player nominated starts at mikecoppage70@gmail.com — the confirmed 2025-season contact for Louisiana. The deadline for that email is 4 p.m. Sunday, which means a coach or family member who watches Friday's game and sends the stat line (full box: player, school, position, yards, touchdowns, opponent, score) Saturday morning gives editors the weekend to include the nomination before the next ballot is finalized. A great game that goes unsubmitted can miss the cut entirely.

Because the poll is uncapped, the instinct is to vote from as many devices as possible — but the Sept. 8 field shows that a ballot can have seven nominees all posting dominant numbers. The player who wins in that environment wins because their community moved together, not because one household ran up a count. The practical target is getting the link in front of every player in the program, every parent, every booster, and every alum who follows the school on social media — once on Saturday, once before Sunday close. That scale of reach is what decides a crowded field. For campaigns that need to extend beyond what a school's existing network can activate, structured vote-support services are built precisely for unlimited-cap polls like this one.

For the full directory of Louisiana fan contests, see /usa/louisiana/. The national hub is at /usa/.