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Many media outlets rarely go back and publicly review their opinions.  We’ll be honest, we were wrong on some things.  We’ll also admit we weren’t as educated on the state of teams nearly to the extent we are heading into this season.  Regardless, we don’t mind humbling our ‘expert’ opinions and taking a look at what we nailed, what we’re on track for, and what we completely had wrong.  Let’s take a look:

 

 

NAILED

• Martinsburg: oh yeah, we predicted the sequel to the best team in decades winning it all.  Experts.
• Capital, Spring Valley, & Huntington: we also predicted these perennial MSAC powers to jab each other and be top five threats.  Hot takes.
• Wheeling Central & St. Marys: no surprise the Blue Devils returned to the ship, but we did predict their opponent.  Not the way they got there, however.
• Mingo Central, Bridgeport, & Point Pleasant: once again, not to brag, but we predicted them all to be contenders for the title.
• Mookie Collier: we had high hopes for Mookie going into 2017, and he exceeded those tall standards.
• Poca: we knew they would #DefeatTheStreak and are now on pace for an even better season.

 

 

EHHH

• East Hardy, Cameron, and South Harrison: we knew they’d have good years but much better than we predicted.
• Keyser: we had them ranked high but injuries and a tough draw really downplayed how good they were.
• Winfield & James Monroe: we often ranked too high or too low for these AA’s and never got it 100% correct.
• Midland Trail: we were high on the Patriots but never quite saw them go as far as they did.
• Tyson Bagent: we had our eye out for him but definitely didn’t recognize him nearly as much as he deserved in the preseason.
• Kerry Martin Jr.: honorable mention in his own region.  SMH.

 

 

DEAD. WRONG.

• Jefferson: preseason number 11… boy.
• Wheeling Park: we thought they would be in the title hunt.  Not so much.
• Lewis County: ranked 12th out of 40+ AA’s.  They finished 1-9.  Still not a bad team.
• Tolsia and Tucker County: both preseason ranked top 10 and combined for under five wins.
• Chapmanville: we had high hopes for the Tigers.  In fairness, injuries to their star player derailed the season.
• John Marshall: we gave them half a thought in the preseason.  They had one of the most impressive 2017 seasons.
• Brenton Strange: not even a mention.  The disrespect was real but not intentional.

 

 

UNPREDICTABLE

• Summers County: a solid team no doubt, but no one saw them making a historic run all the way to the semifinals.
• Adam Murray: who?  That’s what we would have said this time last year.  He was the first sophomore Huff Award winner.
• PikeView: we challenged them to win two games.  They won seven.  Heck of a year!
• Philip Barbour: 0-10 to 8-2?  First-year head coach?  No way.  But, nonetheless, it happened.
• Malakai Brown: sophomore wide out of Hedgesville came virtually out of nowhere to lead the COUNTRY in his class in stats.

 

 

Best Predicting Writer? Third Writer finished with 105/143 correct fight card predictions.  So listen to them this season.  Not Wide Writer who had 79…

 

 

We’re often humbled when we look back at our initial predictions.  Our hunches are usually on track, but there is always those players and teams that exceed and those that full short.  If we got it all right, it would be boring.  However, our scouting and research is ever-improving, and we hope to be even more accurate in our magazine and regional previews.  Who will be the unpredictable talent of 2018?