The playoffs lie ahead, but let's take some time to savor what's been one of the more enjoyable regular seasons this area has seen in high school football.

After following the conference formerly known as the Tri-Seven as both student and reporter since 2001, I can honestly say I can't remember the league being as good top-to-bottom.

Six of the conference's teams will enter the playoffs, none with fewer than five wins.

While Middle Creek made it through the conference slate unscathed, the rest of the league took on an "anybody can win on any given night" approach that led to a three-way tie for second and ties at fifth and seventh place as well.

Here's my postseason superlatives (the conference decided its own Monday night, but cannot announce until after the season) with a few observations on the year at-large.

How I did:On the year, I posted my weekly football predictions on the SWakeSports blog, with some weeks going better than others. These were pretty popular and got me in trouble when I happened to be way off, like picking a team to win by six only to watch them lose by 40 (thanks Panther Creek).

Overall, I got 49 of 65 games (including both Cary Christian playoff games) correct. That's a 75 percent accuracy rate, which would make me either an awesome quarterback or a decent kicker.

Player of the Year: I never thought this award would be so hard to decide. Fuquay's Cory Hunter easily won it last year as a sophomore, and was nothing short of brilliant in his junior campaign (1,821 yards, 29 touchdowns).

But then you've got Holly Springs' J.J. Graves (1,233 yards 23 touchdowns) who also made a strong case in this, his senior year. The fullback was arguably the most valuable player to any program this year as he accounted for more than 62 percent of his team's rushing yards and led the Golden Hawks to their first-ever appearance in the playoffs.

Athens Drive running back Kyree Green (1,612 yards 24 touchdowns) also deserves to be part of the conversation even though he spent most of the year flying under-the-radar.

And then there's Garrett Leatham. The junior quarterback led Middle Creek to an undefeated record in the Tri-Nine and only one loss (by seven at 10-1 Southern Durham) while throwing for 3,183 yards (289.4 per game), 28 touchdowns (plus two rushing scores) at an astonishing 63.3 completion rate.

Five times he threw for more than 300 yards in a game - more than 400 on three different occasions.

It's tough to decide a winner here, but I'll go with the man who put his team on top and say Leatham deserves the award.

Game of the Year:As you'll see later on in this column, there was no shortage of heart-pounding games to choose from. The best, I'd have to say, is one that not only came in the last minute, but turned the conference title race on its head and also firmly established a rivalry that may be second to only Cary-Apex in hostility.

Holly Springs' Mike Roach found teammate Corron Boston in the end zone with 36.6 seconds left to snatch away victory from Fuquay-Varina back on Oct. 9. After four second-half lead changes, it was the first conference loss at home the Bengals had suffered since 2005.

What made this great game a classic might've been the electricity on the field and in the stands. Some mischievous Holly Springs supporters had drawn "Go Golden Hawks" on the Fuquay scoreboard earlier in the year. The two student sections were quick to boo the other, and the Bengals even chanted "not our rival" and sent a fan with the team flag down to run in front of the visitor's sideline just to get under the skin of Hawk supporters (even though those two actions completely contradict).

Needless to say, this rivalry will be one to watch in future years.

Performance of the Year: Hunter's 463 yards rushing on Sept. 18 against Panther Creek came just 16 yards shy of a state record. Hunter scored four touchdowns in that game alone, and his Bengals needed all of them to win a wild 51-42 shootout in which both teams combined for 1,150 yards of total offense.

Best trend:Close games were the rule and blowouts the exception when it came to conference play.

Half of the 32 Tri-Nine games were decided by eight points or fewer.

Holly Springs participated in six of them, at one point winning four in a row in the game's last 61 seconds. Lee County was on the other end, going 1-3 in those games with three losses decided by 11 points combined.

Worst trend:The injury bug hit Tri-Nine teams hard this year in a variety of different ways. The year got off to a bad start when Cary's Michael White collapsed on the sideline during a scrimmage at Wakefield.

White needed a defibrillator to be revived at the scene, and he is likely done with competitive sports at the age of 15. On opening week, Green Hope's Matt Byrd suffered a neck stinger on the same field. Afraid to move Byrd due to the location of his injury, officials waited 45 minutes for the ambulance to get to the field and called the game with a little over two minutes remaining.

That next day, Athens' Ashton Rodgers was hit by a bus and missed several weeks as a gash on his leg healed up. In one week, Fuquay lost all three starting linebackers and Panther Creek saw two players get carted off the field in the same game.

The two teams met that next Friday, only to see Fuquay's Ethan Ricci break his growth plate during the contest and center Joe Hoover suffer a concussion that caused him to botch a snap.

"I think it's become a lot more prevalent. I don't know why it's happening. You look at the strength training I think teams are doing a lot better in getting players ready for the season," Fuquay coach Ryan Habich said. "In high school, there's a lot of players playing both ways and there's not a lot of depth in high school that you can go to."

And if excessive injuries and concussions weren't going around enough, there was swine flu ever-ready to take out the healthy. Let's hope everyone recovers from their respective hurts soon.