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

Kirtland in Division VI, Olentangy Orange in Division I — same ballot, same Sunday

The December 2025 championship-week ballot put Ohio's extremes in the same room. John Silvestro of Kirtland — a 450-student school in Geauga County that has won more OHSAA Division VI football championships than any other program in that division — ran for 255 yards and 4 touchdowns in the Division VI title game. On the same ballot: Levi Davis of Olentangy Orange, a Division I program in the booming Columbus suburbs, who threw for 177 yards and 2 touchdowns and ran for 96 more and a third score in the Division I championship. Blake Elder of Avon (12 of 18, 216 yards, 4 TDs, Division II) and Charlie Werling of St. Henry (178 rush yards, 3 TDs, plus 50 pass yards and a fourth score, Division VII) completed a field that stretched from NW Ohio's farm-country title programs to Columbus's fastest-growing suburbs.

That field is the Ohio statewide football poll in its clearest form. High School on SI / SBLive Ohio does not sort by enrollment or regional conference. The ballot is a single list, open to every Ohio reader through Sunday at 11:59 PM ET, with no limit on real human votes. A Division VI community that turns out in full is not outgunned by the size of a Division I school's enrollment — it competes on how many real supporters it puts into motion before Sunday night. The December 2025 championship ballot is the sharpest evidence the data provides that division level does not determine outcomes here.

What sets this ballot apart from Ohio's other football polls

Ohio has multiple regional and statewide football recognition programs running at the same time, and they are not interchangeable. Understanding how this one differs from its siblings is where campaign planning starts.

Two things this poll offers that none of its Ohio siblings do together: statewide scope and no per-voter cap. NEOSI reaches more people in Cuyahoga and Summit counties but closes Thursday — it is over before most families have had a free weekend moment. The Dayton poll closes Wednesday. This poll gives supporters the full weekend plus Sunday. For a Div VI program in NE Ohio or a Div VII program in NW Ohio whose voters are scattered across a region rather than concentrated in a metro, the statewide unlimited ballot is the most favorable Ohio football poll structure available.

The championship ballot, the opening-week ballot, and what they show

Two confirmed ballot cycles anchor the facts available for this poll. Together they show both ends of the Ohio football calendar.

December 2025 — OHSAA championship week

One detail from that Avon row is worth noting: two players from the same school on the same ballot split the Avon community's votes between them. A school with two nominees faces a real decision about where to concentrate outreach — and the organizer does not merge votes by school.

August 2024 — Week 1 opening ballot

The Week 1 field already ran from Cleveland (Villa Angela-St. Joseph, Archbishop Moeller) to NW Ohio (Toledo Central Catholic) to Geauga County (Kirtland). Bo Jackson's Ohio State commitment and his first-half stat line made him the highest-profile name on that ballot — and the poll's audience was seeing it from every corner of Ohio on the same Sunday window.

Running a real campaign in Ohio's statewide unlimited window

Getting a player onto the ballot starts before the game. SI's Ohio editors build the field from nominations submitted by email to ryan@scorebooklive.com. A nomination sent Monday or Tuesday after the game — player name, school, OHSAA division, position, the complete stat line, opponent, and score — gives the editorial team what they need before the ballot is set. Championship-week performances are the most likely to draw national attention; regular-season weeks require the nomination email to do more of the work.

Once the ballot is live, the structure of this poll rewards breadth more than intensity. Because the Sunday 11:59 PM ET close is the latest deadline of any Ohio football poll, a campaign that starts Friday after the game and refreshes Sunday has more total time than NEOSI or Dayton supporters get. Glenville's two-nominee December 2025 appearance illustrates a specific scenario worth planning for: a Cleveland City Schools program drawing on a deep, regionally concentrated base across Greater Cleveland — the kind of community where a shared football identity converts into consistent Sunday-night voting. Kirtland's community in Geauga County is smaller in absolute number but more centralized in practice; that is why the Division VI dynasty shows up on the same ballot as programs many times its enrollment and competes on it.

The Avon two-nominee situation is the cautionary version of the same logic. When Blake Elder and Quiante' Smith both landed on the December 2025 championship ballot, Avon's supporters faced a choice NEOSI and Dayton voters rarely encounter: split outreach between two players, or pick one and concentrate. The organizer does not merge votes by school. A team that finds itself in that position on a Sunday ballot — with Glenville or Kirtland also in the field — needs to decide before the link goes out, not after. Because the window runs through Sunday night, there is still time to coordinate. That is the practical edge the Sunday close gives Ohio campaigns that the regional polls do not.