Coupeville Sports

   Cameron Toomey-Stout (11) and Co. will seek a second-straight win over South Whidbey when the season kicks off Sept. 1. (John Fisken photo)

Well, it’s a start.

Coming off a 3-7 season (in which it was two plays from being 5-5), the Coupeville High School football team is ranked ahead of 2,631 other teams nationally in a preseason poll.

Of course, before you get super excited, MaxPreps, which is behind these way-too-early-and-based-on-little-of-substance rankings, has 14,546 schools in its poll.

So, the Wolves are looking upwards at a few thousand teams.

Officially, CHS sits #38 in 1A, #234 in Washington state and #11,915 nationally in the rankings.

California juggernaut Mater Dei is #1 in the USA, while Atlanta’s Cross Keys sits dead last at #14,546.

As always, there’s more to the story than just the ranking.

According to an online story I briefly skimmed, Cross Keys is the most culturally diverse school in Georgia, with students from 65 countries who speak 75 different languages.

It’s a school of immigrants, many of whom are playing football (at least the American version) for the first time, which is why at one point the school had won just 16 games across 18 seasons.

But back to Coupeville.

Last season was the first year of a two-year test run on combining the Olympic and Nisqually Leagues for football, with the Wolves finishing 6th out of eight teams.

The MaxPreps “rankings” aren’t based on the views of coaches, writers and fans, but off of previous win-loss records, quality of wins and strength of schedule.

While the 2017 preseason standings are semi-close to being a mirror image of the 2016 results, they do project Charles Wright Academy hurdling Klahowya and Coupeville skipping past Bellevue Christian.

Take it with a grain of salt, but here’s how the Wolves stack up with the 10 schools they’re scheduled to play this season.

PS — Nooksack, La Conner and South Whidbey are non-conference foes, and La Conner is a 2B and not a 1A school. The Braves are ranked #8 in their classification.

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