I’m a pretty smart guy.

At least I thought I was.

This high school football season is humbling me.

By now, I usually have this whole prep football thing nailed. By now, I can usually predict with 99.2 percent certainty (not an arbitrary number) which teams will make the playoffs and which teams will miss them.

Not this year.

This year, I have been stumped nearly every week. I’m still stumped.

And you know what? It’s pretty awesome.

There were a lot of things I thought I knew a month ago that, well, simply are not true:

What I thought I knew: Seneca Valley would struggle.

What I think I know now: The Raiders are for real.

One would think losing guys like Jordan Brown, Jon Dorogy and Forrest Barnes would make for a pretty tough season.

Instead, Seneca Valley is 3-0 coming off a dominating win over defending Quad-A state champ North Allegheny.

No one saw that coming.

These Raiders are doing it with defense — they’ve only given up 34 points in three games.

It may be the best SV defense in a decade. And this team may make some noise come playoff time.

What I thought I knew: Union would struggle at quarterback.

What I think I know now: Lane Cicciarelli may be the best pure passer in the Butler County area.

The numbers certainly support that argument.

Through three games, Union’s junior quarterback has completed 53 percent of his passes for 525 yards and eight touchdowns. He’s only tossed one interception.

What I thought I knew: Teams would find a way to bottle up Josh Schultheis behind a young and inexperienced Mars offensive line.

What I think I know now: Yeah. That’s not happening.

There was no secret to what Mars was planning to do Friday night against Indiana. That plan was to give the rock to Schultheis, the junior running back with a very large target on his back.

Doesn’t matter. He still bulled and slammed and sliced his way through the Indians’ defense for 212 yards and three touchdowns.

And guess who is leading the area in rushing yards and touchdowns? You guessed it, Josh Schultheis.

What I thought I knew: Scoop would be more than seven games over .500.

What I think I know now: Scoop needs serious help.

My buddy Scoop is not having a good season. He is just 20-13 through three weeks, his worst record at this point in his prognostication history.

He’s picked teams to win who have turned around and lost by mercy rule.

He should be tarred and feathered. Wait, he’s already feathered. Just tarred, then.

However, there is a silver lining. There are still at least seven weeks left.

It’ll be fun to see what happens.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.