In yesterday’s blog I started releasing my Preseason All Conference teams and today I will continue with the All-Independent and All-MAC teams

The MAC has 10 teams with two or more 1st-Team selections and are led by Bowling Green who has five players including 2 on their fine ST’s unit. Defending East Champ Ohio has four 1st-Team selections while Western Michigan and Miami, Ohio each have three 1st-Team players and are led by offensive stars WMU QB Alex Carder and Miami WR Nick Harwell.

The All-Independent team has naturally been dominated by ND players but with the addition of BYU last year, the team has gotten more balanced. This year ND again leads the way with 13 1st-Team selections (20 overall) while BYU has 11 1st-Team selections (18 overall). Navy and Army each have one 1st-Team player while Army has 7 players overall Navy has 6.

Please check PhilSteele.com everyday to get my Top 40 Countdown which continued the today with #32 Houston and #31 Ohio. Every day now thru June 12th, I will post both magazine pages on each team that day and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your favorite team. Remember I will make those magazine pages available for only 24 hours for you to download.

18 DAYS UNTIL PHIL STEELE’S 2012 MAGAZINE IS ON SALE!

ONLY 104 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE FIRST COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME!!!

In today’s blog I will start releasing my All Conference teams starting with the All-WAC and All-Sun Belt teams.

The Sun Belt is led by FIU and WKU who both have seven 1st Team All-Conference players including FIU RB Kedrick Rhodes and WKU TE Jack Doyle. Louisiana fresh off their first ever bowl game is well represented with six 1st Team players led by RB Alonzo Harris and Arkansas St has arguably one of the most underrated QB’s in the country in Ryan Aplin.

In the WAC defending champ Louisiana Tech leads the way with nine 1st Team All-Conference players led by QB Colby Cameron and WR’s Quinton Patton and Myles White. San Jose St which was much improved LY and returns many of their key players also has nine 1^st Team selections while Idaho and San Jose St each have four players on my 1^st Team.

Please check PhilSteele.com everyday to get my Top 40 Countdown which continued the today with #34 Louisville and #33 Utah. Every day now thru June 12th, I will post both magazine pages on each team that day and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your favorite team. Remember I will make those magazine pages available for only 24 hours for you to download.

19 DAYS UNTIL PHIL STEELE’S 2012 MAGAZINE IS ON SALE!

ONLY 105 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE FIRST COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME!!!

Today’s blog is about accuracy. I take great pride in the accuracy of my predictions in the magazine. I write each of the 124 team previews myself while most of the other magazines have each conference written by a different writer from that conferences area. I put my name on the front of the magazine and my goal each year is to pick every conference perfect. Naturally that is an unreasonable goal but my magazine is the MOST accurate over the past 14 years and it is not really close.

This year, Brandon Pertner who is one of the Assistant Editors here and a former radio producer and talk show host was kind enough to write an article on my magazine being the most accurate over the last 14 years. The scores are figured by taking each publication’s forecasting accuracy by comparing the predicted finish with the actual finish of each team in the conference.

In the last 14 years my overall score is 1,957. The closest magazine to me is Athlon at 1,990. That is a 33 point difference which is almost five touchdowns!!! Keep in mind this chart is similar to Golf scores in that the lower the score the more accurate the magazine.

Recently I have taken home 3 titles in the past eight years (2004, 2006, 2008)! In 2004, I had one of my best years and finished with just 125 points, which was 8 points better than my closest competitor The Sporting News. In 2006, I again won the title this time by 5 points over Athlon. Four years ago I bagged another title and this time I won by 4 points over Sports Illustrated and last year I just missed out on taking home another season title by a single point.

While I consider any year that I do not win the title to be a disappointment, last year I finished with a total score of 148 which put me #2 in the standings (Gameplan #1 with 147). Without a doubt the goal this year is to be back on top and hopefully see me take home my 4th season title in 9 years.

If you have any questions on the chart or need further explanation please refer to pages 316-317 of this year’s magazine or visit stassen.com

Check back tomorrow to get the first glimpse at my preseason 2012 All-SBC and All-MAC teams!!!

Phil Steele’s 2012 College Football Preview
Advance Copy Ordering Information

The official on sale date of my magazine is June 5th! Trucks should be here in Cleveland with copies ready to ship on May 29th a full week before it hits the newsstands. The cost is $14.25 and that includes Priority Mail ($5.30) with an estimated delivery time of 3-5 days, THIS IS NOT GUARANTEED BY THE POST OFFICE. You can place your order through our office at 1-866-918-7711 or at PhilSteele.com. You have your choice of 11 different covers and the website is your best option. (PhilSteele.com store)

Personally when I know something is available, I want it NOW. If you are like me and cannot wait for things you can order one of our very special autographed copies NOW! I am getting 4 cases of 22 magazines delivered in advance of our truck delivery. That means I will have 88 copies in my office by Tuesday, May 22nd at the latest. If you take advantage of this special offer you will receive the 2012 Phil Steele College Football Preview Magazine with our National Cover. Since you will be paying a premium price you can have it autographed with a personalized message and we will rush it out to you via Priority Mail so you should have your hands on the magazine by the end of next week to enjoy over the Memorial Day Weekend! (delivery time is not guaranteed by the Post Office)

We are limited on the amount of early copies available to us so be one of the first in the country to have a copy. Your cost for the SPECIAL ADVANCE COPY of the magazine is $39.95 and you can place your order with us at 1-866-918-7711. This special is NOT available at our PhilSteele.com store and can only be ordered through our office, as the website cannot accommodate for autographed copies (you can tell me what you want me to write on it). While the cost may seem exorbitant, most of you know shipping and fuel costs have increased and we are only passing those costs onto you since we are getting them sent to us in advance of the regular shipment.

Also while we could probably sell 1,000 early copies at face value, the fact that there are only 88 copies does increase the value so be one of the first 88 people in the country to have their hands on the Phil Steele 2012 College Football Preview!

Please check PhilSteele.com everyday to get my Top 40 Countdown which started yesterday with #40 Rutgers and #39 Georgia Tech. Every day from now thru June 12th, I will post both magazine pages on each team that day and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your favorite team. Remember I will make those magazine pages available for only 24 hours for you to download. Today Iowa and Kansas St come in at #38 and #37 respectively.

21 DAYS UNTIL PHIL STEELE’S 2012 MAGAZINE IS ON SALE!

ONLY 107 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE FIRST COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME!!!

Today’s blog will officially start the countdown of my top 40 teams that will appear in the magazine that will hit the news stands on June 5th which is just 22 DAYS AWAY!! Every day now thru June 12th, I will post both magazine pages on each team (for 24 hours only) and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your favorite team.

Today Rutgers comes in at #40 and Georgia Tech is at #39.

The Scarlet Knights new HC Kyle Flood has 15 st’rs back but they did have beneficial off (12.8) and def (17.0) ypp’s LY. They have 4 AG’s in the BE (just 3 HG) but have the league’s best defense and will contend for the BE Title. Meanwhile GT has13 ret st’rs and LY was #4 in the ACC at +23.2 ypg. GT has 443 wins in Bobby Dodd Stadium, most of any school at their current site. GT does have to face VT, Clem, NC and UGA all on the road but should make it to their 16 straight bowl!

Click Here to Download Rutgers’ Magazine Pages.PDF!

Click Here to Download Georgia Tech’s
Magazine Pages.PDF!

Check back tomorrow to see who I have coming in at #38 and #37!!

ONLY 108 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE FIRST COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME!!!

Today’s blog includes all of my Magazine Covers with the exception of the National Cover.

Making a magazine cover has always been a big deal for college players all the way back to the old Street & Smith days which featured the top players without their face masks. In past years I have had 10 different covers that I ship out to different parts of the United States so you can pick up a mag with your favorite player in that region on it. Last year I expanded it to 11 covers by revealing my new “Northwest Cover” which featured players from Oregon, Washington and Boise St on it!

While most magazines break down their covers by conference, I feel my covers separate themselves as I produce special Florida, Texas and Alabama/Auburn covers. Also I am the only magazine that has an Armed Forces cover!

This year we are featuring a record 41 different players from 38 schools made my cover(s)! 5 players made my cover for a 2nd year in a row in West Virginia QB Geno Smith, South Carolina RB Marcus Lattimore, Oklahoma QB Landry Jones, Florida St QB EJ Manuel and Michigan QB Denard Robinson. USC QB Matt Barkley has now made 3 covers in a row! Broken down by position: 16 QB’s made my covers followed by 12 RB’s, 4 LB’s, 3 WR’s, 3 DL and 3 DB’s. Check out all the covers below!

The official on sale date of my magazine is June 5th! Trucks should be here in Cleveland with copies ready to ship a full week before it hits the newsstands. The cost of the mag on the newsstands is $8.95 but if you want to order thru the offices the cost is $14.25 and that includes Priority Mail ($5.30) with an estimated delivery time of 3-5 days, however THIS IS NOT GUARANTEED BY THE POST OFFICE. You can place your order through our office at 1-866-918-7711 or at PhilSteele.com. You get your choice of 11 different covers and the website is your best option. (PhilSteele.com store)

Please check PhilSteele.com everyday starting next Monday to get my Top 40 Countdown! Every day starting Monday May 14th thru June 12th, I will post both magazine pages on each team and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your favorite team. Remember those magazine pages are available for only 24 hours for you to download!
I will also give you information in a blog next week on how you can get an advanced copy of this year’s magazine!

SEC

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This will be the final version of our Mock Draft. Also there is a trade between Philadelphia and Jacksonville in the first round and no doubt there will be other trades as well but we did not include any others as the timing of the trades would be nearly impossible to forecast. Enjoy the draft and check back here to see how we fared with our picks as we did go against the grain with several picks!

A word of caution, remember these are not necessarily the order of the top players (check my updated top position by position breakdown for that info) but where they fit into that organization’s needs.

Covering college football as I do takes 52 weeks a year as it is and while I personally do not scout the high school games and rate each player I do compile my rankings based on the many different recruiting services across the country that follow and scout HS football year round. I not only like to use all of the biggest and best services, but I also use regional reports as well. The colleges themselves use many of these services to get the latest information on recruits.
One very important part of my College Football Preview Magazine is an individual player’s “PS#”. You will see them on almost every page and I find them vital in my analysis of a team.  A simple definition for a PS# is my ranking of the players at their positions coming out of high school.

When I receive a recruiting magazine, I translate each player’s ranking into a point system from 1-100.  Each and every player is then logged into the computer and give them a point total from each source. This is a very time-consuming process. Many players are listed by just one or two sources. The higher ranked recruits are mentioned by almost every source. The more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated in each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by each position and by total points. Naturally, the QB with the most total points then becomes PS#1QB for that year. If a player is PS#99QB, that means he ranks 99th in total points of all QB’s coming out of high school that year.

Before I wrap this article up, I would like to go over a couple of commonly used abbreviations that are used. Now you know just what a PS# is. Naturally, the PS stands for Phil Steele, or my rating for the players out of high school. I also use HT often. HT is a Highly Touted athlete. In the past this has been a player who ranks in the Top 100 at his position out of high school. With 50 states that comes out to be about 2 players per state at each position. A VHT (Very Highly Touted) is a player rated among the Top 20 out of HS.

I have changed the HT and VHT guidelines in the past couple of years. At K, the ratings drop to Top 10 for VHT and Top 35 for HT. At TE it is Top 15 for VHT and Top 75 for HT. QB is Top 30 for VHT and Top 100 for HT. WR and RB have two spots on most teams, therefore, the HT number is up to #150 and the VHT is up to #50. Most teams play 3 or 4 LB’s so that number moves to #200 for HT classification and #60 for VHT. The DL’s and DB’s generally have 4 players on the field. The HT classification is now up to #250 at those positions, while a VHT is among the Top 60 out of HS at their unit as a whole. The offensive line, which has 5 spots, is also up to #250 as an HT and up to #100 for a VHT. Many recruiting publications do not distinguish between OL and DL for their lineman. As a general rule, we put them into the OL category so that position has, by far, the largest amount of players.

Also new last year in my College Football Preview on every Top Newcomers list is the number of VHT’s and HT’s that each team brings in this year. For example, Texas signed the most number of VHT’s (22) and HT’s (6) combined with 28 while Ohio St (20) and Alabama (19) also led the way in VHT signings. This is also a nice quick way to compare how your favorite team did in the recruiting wars vs other conf foes. For example, Arkansas St signed 3 VHT players while the rest of the Sun Belt only brought in 4 other VHT players combined! Read more…

A couple of weeks ago I gave you the odds to win the 2012 National Championship courtesy of Bovada. In today’s blog I will give you Bovada’s updated odds to win Super Bowl XLVII after yesterday’s news that Peyton Manning will be a Denver Bronco next year.

I must stress that while PhilSteele.com does not affiliate itself with gambling, I do think it is interesting to see how Vegas is examining the upcoming season.

Also make sure you are checking out my updated 2012 Draft Preview with a Top 10 position by position outlook and the top performers at each position during each drill at the combine.

Don’t forget to check out our Spring Central section to get 2012 schedules, coaching changes, who’s back/who’s not and all the NFL Draft early entrants.

Bovada Odds to Win 2013 Super Bowl
XLVII @ Superdome-New Orleans, LA
Sunday, February 3, 2013

Summary

1. Green Bay 13/2-The Super Bowl 45 champs and LY’s 15-1 season make the Pack clearly one of the early favorites and why not with QB Rodgers back behind center and of course they have done a solid job in recent drafts.

2. New England 15/2-Even with a loss in Super Bowl 46, the Patriots are one of the early favorites to capture their first title since 2004. In recent years they have retooled their defense and added a couple of outstanding TE’s and you can never count out Brady and Belichick.

3. New Orleans 10/1-The Saints arguably had one of the best offenses in the history of the NFL last season. While they had a tough playoff road loss to the 49ers, with Brees and Co back expect more of the same high-flying Saints and I’m sure they would love nothing more than to play the Super Bowl in their home stadium.

4. Denver Broncos 12/1-The Broncos were my inspiration to write this blog today as just a few weeks ago they were at least 50/1 odds at many places. Now with the addition of QB Manning, the Broncos probably have their best chance at winning to the Super Bowl since John Elway was on the sidelines more than a decade ago.

4. Houston Texans 12/1-The Texans won their first playoff game in franchise history last year and did so with their #3 QB Yates. With a healthy QB Schaub throwing to WR Johnson, a great RB in Foster and one of the NFL’s best defenses, Houston may become perennial playoff winner.

I am now fully entrenched writing my 18th edition of my college preview magazine and awhile back finished writing all the coaches sections for each of the 124 schools.

One thing that has clearly changed in the past decade plus has been the proliferation of the coaches’ salaries and in 2011 a record 32 college coaches made $2,000,000 or more for the year.

I find it fascinating to see what each of the coaches make per year and believe me much of it is well deserved when you consider the hours they put in and the constant demands by alums all over the country.

Below is a chart of the top 50 highest paid college coaches and the salary information was provided by the USA Today football coaches salary database which combine both guaranteed and non-guaranteed incomes. (Private universities such as USC and Notre Dame did not reveal what they specifically paid their coaches.)

Top 50 Highest Paid College Coaches

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