I’ll admit it. I’m a football junkie. I’m the guy that sits up at 2 a.m. to watch Hawaii and whoever they are playing on the island.

I’ve driven hours to watch a high school football championship game just because one of the teams playing in it was from the area of my hometown.

I’ve also sat through driving rain and bitter cold and wind at football games, never leaving early even if the game is a blowout.

That’s why my favorite part of being the sports editor of The Democrat is standing on the sidelines every Friday night in the fall enjoying high school football games.

And there were a lot of games to enjoy. The 2008 season was a banner year for prep football in the Miss-Lou.

Eight of the 13 11-man teams in the area made the playoffs and Tensas Academy advanced to the championship game of the MPSA eight-man football league as well.

Of those eight schools, six of them won at least one playoff game, including Natchez High, which hadn’t even been to the playoffs since 1997.

One of our teams (Centreville) won a state championship while another (Franklin County) advanced to the South State championship game.

Yes, it was a great year for high school football in the Miss-Lou, which makes picking an All-Metro team even more difficult.

The 2008 edition of The Natchez Democrat’s All-Metro team will hit the news stands and your doorstep on Christmas Day.

It’s become a Christmas tradition for The Democrat sports department, and we consider it our little Christmas gift to the area sports fans.

For those of you who are wondering how the team is selected, here’s a little rundown.

Each coach was asked to nominate as many players as he liked. Last year, there was a five player cap on the nominations, but after realizing there were many deserving players who couldn’t be nominated, we decided to open it up to as many nominations as the coaches wanted this year.

Once all the nominations are turned in, The Democrat sports department — myself, sports reporter Krysten Oliphant and sports clerk Patrick Jones — combed through the list of about 135 names and their statistics to select a first, second and third team, along with coach and player of the year.

Team placements were based on a few different things, individual statistics and team success.

While the placements mostly run strictly by statistics, if two players’ stats were very similar, the player whose team was more successful might have been placed ahead of the other player.

It was a little more tricky in the case of offensive linemen, who have no stats.

Those placements were based on which players made postseason All-District or All-Star teams.

We then looked at which team had the more powerful running game and general offense in rounding out the offensive linemen on the team.

Everyone nominated received at least honorable mention, and it is well deserved.

It is a bit of work putting the All-Metro team together, but it is a lot of fun as well.

It is a reward for the players who put months of blood, sweat and tears into playing their absolute best on Friday nights.

But it isn’t just the players that will appear on the sports page on Thursday that make it happen.

Everyone on the team has a part to play in a team’s success.

So congratulations to everybody that suited up this season for teams across the Miss-Lou.

Thanks for yet another great football season. I can’t wait for the 2009 season to start.