It's time to pick an MVP

It's not easy picking the 10 most valuable high school football players in Southeast Missouri, and it'll be even harder to pick just one.

But your input and feedback — along with opinions of a few coaches and athletes across the area — has helped us put together a list of 10 nominees for the fourth annual SEMO MVP Award, and we'll have at least three weeks to decide the best of the bunch.

The first thing you might notice when you see the list is that several really, really good athletes in our 33-team area aren't there, and that's what made this list nearly impossible to create. Dozens of names were tossed around for almost a month, and about 25 athletes on offense and defense were seriously considered before the last round of cuts.

Our final survey could have included 20 names. It almost included 12, but it was narrowed down to the original goal of 10 late Wednesday. And trust me, it was painful to remove anybody from the list.

But now the next choice is all yours, and we'll keep the voting open until each of ouru 10 nominees complete the season (including playoffs).

For the winner (with MSHSAA regulations in mind) we'll hand over a pretty cool engraved plaque and add his name to our three-person list of SEMO MVPs so far.

To make your pick and see the list of nominees, follow this link to our SEMO MVP Award page.

To join the discussion about our award, follow this link to our forum.

And always, I welcome any comments or feedback, too. E-mail me at jhall@semosportsweb.com.