Some of the most fun we have at C&C is predicting team success and player accolades. It is usually an in-vain effort due to the unpredictability of football (why we love it). The fact that NFL analysts are paid huge salaries and given bounds of resources and still miss incredibly often makes us feel a little better. However, one thing we have done every year is shine light on where we were right and where we wrong.
C&C’s 2020 WV Prep Football Insider is set to release both physically and digitally on July 4th! In this will be predictions for every team and much more!
Most Accurate Team Predictions
We predicted a high amount of team with a 90% and 100% accuracy (based on amount of wins). Of course, we said Martinsburg would go undefeated and be the champion, but so did everyone else. One of our best picks in AAA was calling Greenbrier East to have one of their best seasons and host a playoff game. In AA, we were happy to call Keyser‘s incredibly dominant season. We also predicted Shady Spring and Frankfort to have big years. Though our accuracy percentage is lower, we do feel that we saw the rise of Oak Glen and Man coming- perhaps, just not enough! In Class A, we were proud to see East Hardy return to being a playoff contender. Also, we perfectly projected Trinity‘s record despite them not playing football for almost a decade.
Most Inaccurate Team Predictions
There was only two teams outside of Class A that had a sub-70% prediction accuracy: Morgantown and George Washington. Morgantown went 3-7 instead of our predicted 7-3. We weren’t right but judging by the closeness of many losses topped with some bad luck- it makes sense. George Washington had a much more successful season than we predicted. They knocked off some truly high-end opponents. If RT Alexander had been the quarterback at the time of the prediction, it would have been better but we still would have undervalued the Patriots. Class A is notorious for killing our predictions. Greenbrier West completely flipped the script and was a quarterfinalist. Tygarts Valley had their best record since 2005. Pendleton County replaced thousands of yards of offense and made it to the semifinals. Magnolia had a treacherous schedule and low roster numbers. We missed them all.
Most Accurate Player Predictions
We feel that a lot of our high-ranked players on the Big Boards had huge seasons. The connection between Elijah Banks and Jarod Bowie truly delivered for our pair of #1 prospects. Banks had video game numbers while Bowie won the State Player of the Year. It was not much to predict Zach Frazier to be the best lineman in the state but we did. Our #1 linebacker for 2019, Brocton Blair (Huntington), was selected as the best defensive player in West Virginia by the coaches. We also felt great about our projections for Bluefield’s JJ Davis, Cabell Midland’s Zach McCoy and JJ Roberts, Martinsburg’s Terrel Goode, and Spring Valley’s David Livingston.
Most Inaccurate Player Predictions
We were all aware of Ethan Payne but zero writers saw him as a Kennedy Award candidate. Big miss. Michael Lemley from Oak Glen did not even make the Defensive Back Big Board and ended up nearly breaking the state record for interceptions with 14 and won the Carl Lee Award. Ethan Varney (Tug Valley) and Carson Winkie (Bridgeport) were two other non-Big Board players that had incredible seasons. Finally, despite a spot on the DB Big Board, no one saw Brandon Penn‘s spectacular 2019 season coming (outside of Parkersburg at least). As a premiere quarterback and defensive back, he finished in second place for both the Offensive Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year via coaches’ vote.