Football 2026 Football Western Foothills 4A/5A- Preseason Rankings

Who will be 2026 Conference Champ?

  • Bandys

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Bunker Hill

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • East Lincoln

    Votes: 4 13.3%
  • Foard

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Hickory

    Votes: 20 66.7%
  • Maiden

    Votes: 4 13.3%
  • Newton-Conover

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • North Lincoln

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • West Iredell

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    30

Flyrod

Senior
Jul 2, 2025
265
621
93
Let's get preseason talk started up.

Who is everyone predicting to be champ?

How will top 5 look?
 

mgore87

Redshirt
Dec 2, 2025
10
16
3
🏈 🌪️Hickory will win the conference they have a ton of returning talent at the skill positions. RB Jaheem Jenkins, WR Ronan Nieland, WR Rocket Brice, WR Zay McCathern, even a basketball star is playing football this season. Coach Glass and his staff do an amazing job on top of that.

1.) Hickory
2.) East Lincoln
3.) West Iredell
4.) Maiden
5.) Newton-Conover
 

oldburkeman

Junior
Aug 23, 2025
200
326
63
West Iredell over Maiden don’t sound right. It’s Maiden they are always ok even when they lose a lot of tallent

Newton, dang no love there or no fans on page.

North Lincoln got a vote. If they really have Agee back and enough to make holes for em they may be in on some games and respectable.
 

mgore87

Redshirt
Dec 2, 2025
10
16
3
West Iredell over Maiden don’t sound right. It’s Maiden they are always ok even when they lose a lot of tallent

Newton, dang no love there or no fans on page.

North Lincoln got a vote. If they really have Agee back and enough to make holes for em they may be in on some games and respectable.
I understand your stance on Maiden, but they were (9-5) last season and (5-3) with talent. I believe they will be decent, but you can easily flip that West Iredell & Maiden prediction, but I believe West will surprise a lot of us and finish 3rd.
I believe Hickory is the program that will always be okay even when losing talent because they produce so much talent, Hickory is the last program in Catawba County to win a state title and did it in an undefeated fashion, (16-0) even in 1996 they went (16-0)
2023 State Champions 🏆 they loss 23 seniors from that team came back went (14-1) and (7-0) in the conference, loss in the regional finals to West Charlotte, last season went (12-2) and (8-0) in the conference loss in the regional finals to Crest, it seems they are clearly the program that will be okay.
 

mgore87

Redshirt
Dec 2, 2025
10
16
3
Prediction
 

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oldburkeman

Junior
Aug 23, 2025
200
326
63
I understand your stance on Maiden, but they were (9-5) last season and (5-3) with talent. I believe they will be decent, but you can easily flip that West Iredell & Maiden prediction, but I believe West will surprise a lot of us and finish 3rd.
I believe Hickory is the program that will always be okay even when losing talent because they produce so much talent, Hickory is the last program in Catawba County to win a state title and did it in an undefeated fashion, (16-0) even in 1996 they went (16-0)
2023 State Champions 🏆 they loss 23 seniors from that team came back went (14-1) and (7-0) in the conference, loss in the regional finals to West Charlotte, last season went (12-2) and (8-0) in the conference loss in the regional finals to Crest, it seems they are clearly the program that will be okay.
Hickory has my vote across the board, just common sense. I remember the 96' team pretty good. Probably one of the few teams around WNC that woulda got em' was Crest and maybe a couple teams in general out East that woulda been 4A but that was it.

I believe West has turned some things around, I watched them beat the brakes off of East Burke last year but of course that wasn't saying much. EB may be decent this year long as they can protect what I believe to be a solid soph QB and use the offense right. New coach too, lost some tallent to what was already struggling but new coach new look, we'll see.

Agee and a North Lincoln tricked up ground and pound offense if they got that smoothed over. Defense will be a big deciding factor for them.

Dont know much bout Newton and Foard and just hearsay with BH that they will struggle for a while as it seemed the tallent pool walked away with graduates.
 
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CHEERDUCK

All-Conference
Jun 5, 2001
5,902
3,359
113

🏈 🌪️Hickory will win the conference they have a ton of returning talent at the skill positions. RB Jaheem Jenkins, WR Ronan Nieland, WR Rocket Brice, WR Zay McCathern, even a basketball star is playing football this season. Coach Glass and his staff do an amazing job on top of that.

1.) Hickory
2.) East Lincoln
3.) West Iredell
4.) Maiden
5.) Newton-Conover
I'm glad to see another HHS poster on the boards. Welcome and Go Red Tornadoes!
 

Lincolnton

All-Conference
Jul 8, 2025
674
1,919
93
“Let's Go!!!!! 🌪️ 🏈 2x 🏆🏆
———————————————————-
If titles are counted from the time that Hickory was a member of the WNCHSAA (Western North Carolina High School Activities Association), there would be 2 more championships in 1959 and 1966.

Side Note: From the time the WNCHSAA was founded in 1929 until it merged with the NCHSAA in 1977, Hickory was Co-champs 4 other times (3 times in the early years because of no championship game, and the last shared title due to a tie).

Postscript: Many fans consider WNCHSAA titles to be equivalent to NCHSAA titles, because of the number of former WNCHSAA teams that have gone on to win NCHSAA titles after the two associations merged.
 
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mgore87

Redshirt
Dec 2, 2025
10
16
3
“Let's Go!!!!! 🌪️ 🏈 2x 🏆🏆
———————————————————-
If titles are counted from the time that Hickory was a member of the WNCHSAA (Western North Carolina High School Activities Association), there would be 2 more championships in 1959 and 1966.

Side Note: From the time the WNCHSAA was founded in 1929 until it merged with the NCHSAA in 1977, Hickory was Co-champs 4 other times (3 times in the early years because of no championship game, and the last shared title due to a tie).

Postscript: Many fans consider WNCHSAA titles to be equivalent to NCHSAA titles, because of the number of former WNCHSAA teams that have gone on to win NCHSAA titles after the two associations merged.
Very True, I was only counting the NCHSAA titles, but that is a great point pertaining to WNCHSAA & NCHSAA being equivalent to each other.
 
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Lincolnton

All-Conference
Jul 8, 2025
674
1,919
93
Saw the 1966 Red Tornadoes play four times, two were in playoff games. Can recall their uniforms, white for home and a blood red jersey for away games; kind of like Penn State in being so plain…They were big, fast and knew how to block and tackle. Very well schooled in the fundamentals.
 

mgore87

Redshirt
Dec 2, 2025
10
16
3
Saw the 1966 Red Tornadoes play four times, two were in playoff games. Can recall their uniforms, white for home and a blood red jersey for away games; kind of like Penn State in being so plain…They were big, fast and knew how to block and tackle. Very well schooled in the fundamentals.
Yes Sir, I was a kid, but I heard they were an amazing group, majority of the games the starters didn't even play the in second half they had one of the most dominant seasons in North Carolina high school football history. In five postseason games that season, Hickory outscored opponents 212-34, a margin that fueled debate about whether it was the best high school football team in North Carolina history and actually won the state championship game 42-0 against Ragsdale 🌪️
 

GrizzlyDevil

All-American
Nov 22, 2011
4,210
8,047
113
Yes Sir, I was a kid, but I heard they were an amazing group, majority of the games the starters didn't even play the in second half they had one of the most dominant seasons in North Carolina high school football history. In five postseason games that season, Hickory outscored opponents 212-34, a margin that fueled debate about whether it was the best high school football team in North Carolina history and actually won the state championship game 42-0 against Ragsdale 🌪️
Very impressive
 
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