History of Rankings

The advent of the Internet did create more interest in national rankings, but in actuality U.S. prep football rankings began in 1927. Multiple national polls have been compiled for decades and it’s surprising how many of them have been touched, started or influenced by the current editors of HighSchoolGridiron.com, the home of the National Sports News Service rankings.

CLICK HERE for the complete all-time list of National Sports News Service mythical national champions.

High school football national ratings have been around for almost as long as the forward pass.

In fact, end-of-the-season rankings have crowned national champions since 1927 when a 21-year-old Minnesota prep multi-sport coach and official named Art Johlfs originated his National Sports News Service. The service later retroactively determined national football title claimants back to 1910.

The late hobbyist originated the NSNS with the football ratings and added boys basketball rankings in 1944 and a girls basketball rating in 1975 before he retired and turned over the rankings in 1978 to magazine publisher Barry Sollenberger of Tempe, Ariz. Sollenberger was a sports historian-journalist who published Arizona state high school magazines beginning in 1971 and edited Joe Namath’s National Prep Sports Magazine in 1976-77. In 1999, he became the first official sports information director for the Arizona Interscholastic Association and at that time turned over the National Sports News Service to National High School Sports Hall of Famer Doug Huff of Wheeling, W. Va. Sollenberger continued on with the AIA until his sudden death from a heart attack in 2005.

The National Sports News Service rankings then became connected to Huff’s work with the FOX Sports Net/Student Sports/Rivals.com/ESPN FAB 50 from 1999 to 2011. This year, due to ESPN’s discontinuation of high school sports other than a top 25 to support TV broadcasts of games involving key recruits, the National Sports News Service is back on its own. It’s under the direction of Huff, who is retired from daily and weekly sports writing and sports editing duties, and Mark Tennis, who was editor of the national Student Sports Magazine from 1993 to 2004 and was director of all of the various FAB 50 rankings in all sports on the Rivals.com (2004-2008) and ESPN platforms (2008-2012).

Popularity of national ratings expanded in 1982-83 when a new national daily newspaper, USA Today, offered weekly rankings for football plus boys and girls basketball compiled by Dave Krider. Other sports were added later. Krider has been followed by Christopher Lawlor and the publication’s current compiler, Jim Halley.

In the 1987-88 school year, the nation’s first national weekly poll of sportswriters for football (and boys basketball) joined the field when Huff began the National Prep Poll. It was distributed over the Associated Press and many other major outlets by World Features Syndicate. It also was used for nine years by ESPN’s Scholastic Sports America.

In 1999, Huff joined Student Sports Inc., published by Andy Bark, and compiled the first FAB 50 rankings for FOX Sports Net with Tennis. Those rankings, which also were the first to add regional breakdowns, evolved into the Student Sports FAB 50 for the 2001 school year. The National Prep Poll name was later revived by sportswriter Jamie DeMoney and continues on PrepNation.com.

In 2007, Rivals.com, known mostly as a college football network of recruiting sites, expanded its reach into the high school market with the creation of RivalsHigh.com. Huff and Tennis provided much of that site’s early national content, including the FAB 50 rankings. In 2008, after the Student Sports events and media group was purchased by ESPN, the Rivals.com rankings expanded to 100 teams in length and since then has been directed by Dallas Jackson.

MaxPreps.com also has published national football rankings in recent years. In addition to computer rankings devised by Ned Freeman, the web site also offers the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 compiled by Stephen Spiewak.

What purpose do these national rankings serve?
It’s simple: they add public interest to the sport and serve as a barometer for team performance much like all-star games for individuals. Debates about who’s No. 1 nationally will never be settled, but the wide-ranging recognition for the athletes and coaches involved no matter where their teams are placed in the rankings are well-deserved.

CLICK HERE for the complete all-time list of National Sports News Service mythical national champions. The year-by-year NSNS final national rankings are listed below.

Yearly NSNS final National Rankings

2012 CLICK HERE

2011 CLICK HERE

2010 CLICK HERE

2009 CLICK HERE

2008 CLICK HERE

2007 CLICK HERE

2006 CLICK HERE

2005 CLICK HERE

2004 CLICK HERE

2003 CLICK HERE

2002 CLICK HERE