Jones: Vote on results for Bladen football teams in Week 1

High school football season officially kicks off Friday. Are you ready?

West Bladen is scheduled to host Pender at The Castle. East Bladen is set to travel to Rocky Point to play Heide Trask. Both games have 7 p.m. start times.

Who do you think will win? Will both Bladen teams win their openers? Will both lose? Will one win and one lose?

If you have an X account (formerly Twitter), you can vote at @FOSonnyJones. The poll will close Friday, assuming I set it up correctly.

Join in the fun and vote. Give it your best guess. If you’re correct, then you are, indeed, a high school football smarty-pants and should be proud. If you’re wrong, well, it’s high school football and not the end of the world, although with our recent stormy weather there’s no guarantee the sun will come up the next day.

The football poll will continue throughout the season if enough interest is shown.

• I’ll be making football predictions each Friday online only. No picks in print because of the newspaper being a weekly Tuesday publication. I’m sure you were about to burst knowing if I would join in the weekly predictions. Haven’t picked games in many years, so I expect to be quite rusty. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.

I plan on making football predictions for games involving Southeastern and Carolina Conference teams, the ACC’s Big Four, some region colleges and Carolina Panthers.

Back in the day, at The Fayetteville Observer, I would get over 80% percent correct for about 300 high school games each season. I also held the record for highest percentage of correct picks for the Observer’s college football predictions. I have no such expectations for this season, but it should be fun.

• Just so you know, the FO on my X/Twitter handle stands for Fayetteville Observer in case you were wondering.

• From the “For What It’s Worth Department,” here are state football rankings from MaxPreps:

East Bladen is 14th in class 2A and West Bladen is 54th in class 3A.

No idea how it is determined

• As high school football season begins, here’s a list of Bladen County NCHSAA championship appearances:

1957: 6-man – Clarkton won state championship

1961: 8-man – Clarkton won state championship

1962: 2A – Elizabethtown 19, Cary 7 (Region 1 champion)

1963: 2A – Elizabethtown 16, Siler City 13 (Region 2 champion)

1964: 2A – Elizabethtown 20, Massey 6 (Region 2 champion)

1973: 3A – East Bladen 16, Jamestown Ragsdale 16 (co-champs)

2008: 1AA – Thomasville 42, East Bladen 13

• On a non-football note, remember when a volleyball team could only score when it served? Sets were played to 15. The best rule change in years was when the sport went from side-out scoring to rally scoring and 25-point sets in 2004. Sets are easier to follow and more exciting.