Mike Vukovcan With the 2025 high school football season starting in just 4 days, one thing is becoming apparent- the players and coaches of Hopewell aren’t the only ones that have expectations for them this season.
Over the weekend, the Pgh Tribune Review released their Preseason HS Football rankings and listed Hopewell as the No. 3 team in Class 3A. That was interesting considering this team won only 4 games last year and haven’t qualified for the WPIAL playoffs since 2012.
It looks as though the Tribune Review aren’t the only high school football outlet that thinks a lot of the Vikings this year.
PA Today Sports came out with their WPIAL rankings on Monday night have also have Hopewell as a top five team. The difference between the Tribune Review and these rankings is that the Trib had Hopewell at No. 3 and Central Valley at No. 5.
PA Today WPIAL 3A Preseason Rankings
Presented By @gamasportstrai1
Avonworth was dominate in November last year, can the repeat? @AvonworthFB #WPIAL pic.twitter.com/wBITW3MyNS
— PA Today (@PA_TodaySports) August 18, 2025
The Vikings home opener will be interesting as PA Today Sports has New Castle ranked as No. 10 in Class 4A.
The obvious question now is how will this team deal with having expectations and a bullseye on their back?
It’s been a long, long time since Hopewell was the team being hunted instead of being the hunter. We’ll start to get some answers to these questions on Friday when they travel to Riverside for the season opener.
