Last night the New Orleans Saints won their 1st Super Bowl in franchise history defeating the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV. The Saints became the 1st team since the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win a Super Bowl in their 1st appearance and just the 5th team to win one in their 1st appearance against a franchise with multiple appearances (5-15). QB Drew Brees completed 32 of 39 passes (82.1) for 288 yards and 2 TDs to tie the Super Bowl record for completions and won the game’s MVP honors.

KEY PLAY OF THE GAME – Late in the 4Q with the Colts driving for the game tying TD, Manning fired a pass to WR Wayne on a routine slant pattern that the Colts run several times every game. However, Saints DB Tracy Porter stepped in front of Wayne, gathered the ball in and raced 74 yards for a TD giving the Saints an insurmountable 31-17 lead with just 3:12 left. Read more…

6:00 ET • CBS

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Todays blog will give you each roster for the Texas vs Nation all-star game complete with names, schools, PS#s and unit grades for each position.

The Texas vs Nation game is in its 4th year and pits the top collegiate players originally from Texas or who played college football in Texas against top players from around the nation.

While the game is relatively new, it has been successful seting attendence records and featuring many players who go on to to sign NFL contracts. The first year’s inaugural game in 2007 broke the attendance record for first year all-star games with 21,548. It also set a record for NFL signees in a first year all-star game with 79 players from the 2007 rosters signing NFL contracts.

In the 2nd year (2008) the game set a new record number of NFL signees in an all-star game with 102 players signing NFL contracts. Last year the attendance almost doubled with more than 40,000 fans in attendance and 111 out of the 119 players went on to sign NFL contracts (93%). The nation leads the series 2-1.

Make sure to check my daily blog tomorrow to get my Super Bowl XLIV forecast complete with my computer’s projected box score of the game plus a game overview that looks at which team has the edge on offense, defense, special teams, coaching and intangibles.

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National signing day was yesterday as the top rated high school players all over the country signed with their favorite school. It is one of the most important days of the year for each college team as usually the teams with the best recruiting classes year in and year out usually find themsevles in the Top 25.

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.

While my final recruiting rankings will not be completed for another month, several recruiting sources that I use have released their Top 10 ratings for 2010. Read more…

Well here it is, my projected AP Top 10 for next year as of February 1, 2010! I will mention it now and I will mention it numerous times throughout today’s blog but this is not MY preseason Top 10 for next year, it is where I project the AP Top 10 to come out at the start of the season.

Last year my projected Top 10 for the AP Poll was #1 Florida, #2 Texas, #3 USC, #4 Oklahoma, #5 Alabama, #6 Virginia Tech, #7 LSU, #8 Oklahoma St, #9 Ohio St and #10 Mississippi. The actual AP Top 25 was #1 Florida, #2 Texas, #3 Oklahoma, #4 USC, #5 Alabama, #6 Ohio St, #7 Virginia Tech, #8 Mississippi and#9 was a tie between Oklahoma St/Penn St.

I nailed nine of the ten teams that appeared in the Preseason Top 10 with the only exception being LSU/Penn St and I may have had something to do with that. It’s interesting to note that of the main preseason magazines, only two had Penn St ranked in the Top 10 and I had them my #1 surprise team and ranked #5. Most had Penn St out of the Top 10. Perhaps since I had them rated so high in my magazine, it influenced a few voters across the country, bumping them into the Top 10.

Now let’s take a look at this year’s projected Preseason AP Top 10: Read more…

I have been working on magazine deadlines since December 1st and have just finished reading 75-150pg reports on each of the 120 FBS teams. The reports are created by my staff throughout the season as they read dozens of articles daily on each of their assigned teams. My staff then underlines all the important information for me and this gives me a lot of flavor of what was going on into and out of games throughout the season. I find it interesting every year to see how the writers’ perception of the team changes from August to January.

I have also just completed my projection of what the AP Preseason Top 10 will look like in August. In each of the last two years I have nailed 9 of the 10 teams that appeared in the Preseason Top 10 successfully with last years exception being LSU/Penn St and I may have had something to do with that. Read more…

This year’s Pro Bowl has undergone several changes. For the first time since 1979, the game will not be played in Honolulu as this year it moves to Miami where a Pro Bowl record crowd of 70,000+ is expected. Also for the first time the game will not be played after the Super Bowl therefore all the Indianapolis and New Orleans players cannot participate in the game. The game will move back to Honolulu in two years and the NFL is meeting this week to decide the where the game will be played from there out.

This year Dallas and Philadelphia have the most participants with 9 followed by Minnesota with 8. Super Bowl teams Indianapolis and New Orleans each had 7 players named but again cannot participate in tonight’s game.

The NFC leads the all-time series 20-19 after winning the last two.

Today’s blog gives you all the past Pro Bowl results since 1971 and I’ve included the latest Pro Bowl rosters including the original starters and the replacements for the Super Bowl/injured players.

Make sure to check tomorrow’s blog with some recruiting information and then don’t forget this Wednesday I will release my projection of what the Preseason AP Top 10 will be for 2010! Read more…

The Senior Bowl has been played every year since 1950 and usually is the top postseason bowl where the best college players from all over the country showcase their skills to NFL coaches and scouts. The players are assigned to either the North or South team according to where they played in college and are coached by NFL staffs. This year the coaches are from the Miami Dolphins (South) and Detroit Lions (North).

Mobile has been the site of the game for every year except the 1st one where it was played in Jacksonville. The South leads the all-time series 29-25-3.

In today’s blog I will give you each coaching staff/roster complete with heights, weights, combine invitations, and PS# on all of the players participating.

I also included my unit grades for each position that take into account each players stats, experience, etc. The higher the grade the better the unit. Use each grade to matchup which team has the stronger unit for each position. Read more…

In Monday’s Blog I gave you the teams with the best odds to win the 2010 national championship courtesy of The Hilton in Las Vegas. In today’s blog is the current list for Returning Starters for each team in 2010 broken down by offense, defense and special teams. The * on the offense number denotes that the starting QB is returning. Below the alphabetical list I broke down teams with the most/least returning starters followed by a conference by conference breakdown.

Please make sure to check out our team schedules for next year. On the left side of the home page under 2010 click onSchedules/13 Year Logs and go to your favorite conference to get schedules for all your teams for 2010. Click on any game to get all the games played between the two teams in the last 13 years with complete statistics including first downs, rushing, passing, sacks, TO’s and much more.

Because we want all the information to be complete and accurate as possible, if you see any games we have missed for next seasons’ schedules or if there have been any recent changes to your favorite teams 2010 schedule please email Brandon@philsteele.com and we’ll get it corrected.

Also don’t forget to check out our Spring Central section to get 2010 schedules, coaching changes, who’s back/who’s not and all the NFL Draft early entrants.

I will be back later this week with all the Senior Bowl/Pro Bowl coverage you need to prepare you for this weekend’s games. On Monday I will expand on the Hilton’s odds to win the 2010 BCS National Championship and give you a breakdown of each of the 50 teams including key starters back/lost.

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In today’s blog I will give you the odds to win the 2010 National Championship from the Hilton. If you are in Las Vegas at anytime in the next couple of months make sure to stop by the Hilton to get advanced odds on the 2010 college football season and advanced odds to win the Super Bowl.

Also make sure to check out our team schedules for next year.  On the left side of the home page under 2010 click onSchedules/13 Year Logs. Go to your favorite conference to get schedules for all your teams for 2010.

Click on any game to get all the games played between the two teams in the last 13 years with complete statistics including first downs, rushing, passing, sacks, TO’s and much more.

Because we want all the information to be complete and accurate as possible, if you see any games we have missed for next seasons’ schedules or if there have been any recent changes to your favorite teams 2010 schedule please emailBrandon@philsteele.com and we’ll get it corrected.

Don’t forget to check out our Spring Central section to get 2010 schedules, coaching changes, who’s back/who’s not and all the NFL Draft early entrants.

We will back by the end of this week with my projections of what the 2010 Preseason AP Top 10 will be.

Here are the Odds to win the 2010 National Championship courtesy of the Hilton. Read more…