We’re just over six hours from kicking off Week 9 of the high school football season, and we’re just now getting around to handing out the Week 8 honors. You can thank a busy week on my end and the fact that a certain “big” Savannah sports anchor was oversleeping in Texas while we were waiting on his vote for the delay.
Nonetheless, it is time to reveal the RBC Heritage Player of the Week for Week 8, and once again, the fan vote came into play — but in an unusual way. In a Ralph Nader/Jill Stein-esque fashion (too soon?), a whopping 1.86 percent of the voters wound up determining this week’s winner.
The Beaufort Academy bloc turned out in force, as usual, earning receiver/kicker William Tumlin the coveted fan vote with 34.96 percent, but the panel went a different direction. We split our votes between May River defensive lineman Roderick Grant and two-way Thomas Heyward standout Bobby Payne, sending us back to the fan ballot to determine the winner.
Oddly, neither Grant nor Payne received a lot of support in the online voting, but Payne had three times as many votes as Grant, making him our winner. And he certainly was a worthy honoree — he rushed for 196 yards and three touchdowns on FIVE CARRIES and recorded five tackles in the Rebels’ 40-0 region-clinching win over Bethesda Academy.
Thanks for voting, and we’ll do it again next week.
Thanks for voting!