Fill out The Herald’s high school football regular season honors ballot

Fill out The Herald’s high school football regular season honors ballot. This one won’t require an hour’s wait, fortunately, and much less is hinging upon the results, which will be revealed later this week. But with a week off before the playoffs start Nov. 18, why not take stock of the season to this point?

Upper State playoff bracket rough drafts

Official state playoff brackets won’t be released until this weekend, but the Upper State portions are largely completed, even if unofficially. Here’s a rough draft of what they’ll look like for local teams (click on the classification to see the actual blank bracket and fill out your own):

5A

Mauldin at Westside (1); Dorman at Nation Ford

Woodmont at Laurens (1); Clover at Spartanburg

Rock Hill at Boiling Springs (1); Easley at Greenwood

Gaffney at Northwestern (1); Hillcrest at T.L. Hanna

4A

Lancaster at Belton-Honea Path (1); North Augusta at Greer

Greenville at South Pointe (1); Eastside at Airport

Aiken at Union County (1); Ridge View at Wren

Blue Ridge at South Aiken (1); Daniel at York

3A

Woodruff at Fairfield Central (1); Pendleton at Palmetto

Indian Land at Newberry (1); Emerald at Crescent

Walhalla at Powdersville (1); Clinton at Chester

Berea at Seneca (1); Camden at Chapman

1A

The 1A bracket still has loose ends to tie up and at-large bids to award but Lewisville - the third seed out of Region 2-A - is basically set to host Wagener-Salley (8-2) out of Region 3 in the first round. Should the Lions win they would travel to Region 1 champ McCormick in the second round. The Chiefs have a bye in Round One.

Note: winner of the first game on each line plays winner of the second game in the second round; the winner of the first foursome plays the winner of the second foursome, and so on. Region champs are denoted by (1)

Watch out, 3A

Fairfield Central knocked off Camden 70-55 last week but there were no rebounds or lane violations recorded. This was still football season.

Fairfield Central rushed for 785 yards against Camden, which was incredibly still somewhat in the game. The State’s Lou Bezjak reported that Griffins running back Tony Ruff ran for 392 yards and four scores and Rod Edmonds “chipped in” with 293 yards and two more TDs.

The Griffins are going to be trouble in the 3A playoffs if they can get past a surprisingly low seeded Woodruff in the first round.

Nation Ford headed to Nichols, S.C.

Nation Ford finished its regular season on Oct. 28 and won’t play again until the first round of the 5A state playoffs against Dorman on Nov. 18.

With so much down time to kill, the Falcons decided to put it to good use and will head down to Nichols, S.C., on Wednesday to help the small town near the North Carolina border continue its clean-up from Hurricane Matthew-caused flooding. Check back next week for an update on how the trip went.

Biggest turnarounds in S.C. high school football this season

Lewisville, Clover and Chester supporters will be happy to see the gains their respective programs have made this season. Click through the interactive graphic to see which other schools across the state have rebouned in the win column in 2016:

Final state rankings before postseason commences

Class 5A

1. Dutch Fork; 2. Northwestern; 3. Fort Dorchester; 4. Westside; 5. Boiling Springs; 6. Spartanburg; 7. Sumter; 8. Dorman; 9. Wando; 10. Spring Valley

Others receiving votes: Greenwood, Blythewood, Nation Ford, Mauldin, Gaffney

Class 4A

1. South Pointe; 2. Myrtle Beach; 3. Hartsville; 4. Belton-Honea Path; 5. South Aiken; 6. North Myrtle Beach; 7. Cane Bay; 8. Ridge View; 9. Union County; 10. Berkeley

Others receiving votes: Chapin, York

Class 3A

1. Dillon; 2. Bluffton; 3. Fairfield Central; 4. Brookland-Cayce; 5. Newberry; 6. Gilbert; 7. Powdersville; 8. Lake City; 9. Strom Thurmond; 10. Chester

Others receiving votes: Chapman, Bishop England, Manning, Woodruff, Palmetto, Crescent, Timberland

Class 2A

1. Abbeville; 2. Saluda; 3. Cheraw; 4. Bamberg-Ehrhardt; 5. Barnwell; 6. Calhoun County; 7. Carvers Bay; 8. Batesburg-Leesville; 9. Andrew Jackson; 10. Andrews

Others receiving votes: Blacksburg, Central, Latta, Lee Central, Southside Christian

Class 1A

1. Lamar; 2. Lake View; 3. McBee; 4. Williston-Elko; 5. C.E. Murray; 6. Lewisville; 7. Cross; 8. Wagener-Salley; 9. Hannah-Pamplico; 10. Hemingway

Others receiving votes: Blackville-Hilda, St. John's, Baptist Hill

This story was originally published November 8, 2016 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Fill out The Herald’s high school football regular season honors ballot."