CUSA has been making huge strides the past couple of years. After going 3-8 in bowls in ’06-’07, they have gone 6-6 the last 2 years. In ’08 both East Carolina and Tulsa were considered possible BCS bowl busters and last year Houston climbed all the way to #12 after big wins against Oklahoma St and Texas Tech.

Until last year there had been a different CUSA league champ for SEVEN straight years with TCU in ’02, SMiss in ’03, L’Ville in ’04, Tulsa in ’05, UCF in ’07 and East Carolina in ’08. The Pirates ended that streak in ‘09 as they repeated with a 38-32 win over Houston in the title game. This year East Carolina loses HC Holtz who left for South Florida and welcome new coach Ruffin McNeil who served as the DC at Texas Tech for the last 3 seasons and was the interim HC in the Red Raiders’ bowl win over Michigan St last year. Can the Pirates 3-peat or will Houston, UTEP or SMU start another streak of different conference champs?

2010 figures to be an exciting year for the conference with record setting players like Houston’s Case Keenum and UTEP’s Donald Buckram back. SMU fresh off their 1st bowl win in 25 years returns QB Kyle Padron and looks to make it to a bowl for the 2nd straight year. Southern Miss is just 1 of 4 teams to have 16 straight winning seasons (Florida, Florida St and Va Tech) and returns their top 2 QBs in Austin Davis and Martevious Young. 

CUSA announced their 2010 football schedules yesterday. Here is a quick breakdown of the schedules for each team… Read more…

Over the next couple of weeks my daily blog will breakdown the top players at each position for this year’s NFL draft. In today’s blog, I have included my top 15 quarterbacks complete with strengths, weaknesses and an overall projection of what round each prospect will likely be drafted in.

If you need complete rankings, career statistics, pictures and draft projections for this year’s running backs download my2010 Draft Guide absolutely free! Also included in the draft guide is pro day workout dates, a draft order for the 1st two rounds, combine invitees by position plus college teams with most draft losses!

Keep checking the guide regularly to get all the latest and greatest information on this year’s draft as we will be adding new information daily. I will be back on Wednesday with my WR rankings followed by my OL rankings on Friday. Read more…

Over the next couple of weeks my daily blog will breakdown the top players at each position for this year’s NFL draft. In today’s blog, I have included my top 15 quarterbacks complete with strengths, weaknesses and an overall projection of what round each prospect will likely be drafted in.

If you need complete rankings, career statistics, pictures and draft projections for this year’s quarterbacks download my2010 Draft Guide absolutely free! Also included in the draft guide is pro day workout dates, a draft order for the 1st two rounds, combine invitees by position plus college teams with most draft losses!

Keep checking the guide regularly to get all the latest and greatest information on this year’s draft as we will be adding new information daily. I will be back on Monday with my RB rankings followed by my WR rankings on Wednesday and my OL rankings on Friday. Have a great weekend! Read more…

My 2010 NFL Draft Guide is now ready to download and it contains all the information you need to become an expert on this year’s draft including pro workout dates, combine invitees by position, teams with the most draft losses, the draft order for the 1st two rounds and much more.

Make sure to check the guide regularly as we will be updating and adding information daily. Tomorrow we will have the position by position rankings of the top NFL prospects plus the first edition of my mock draft. In Friday’s Blog I will continue my NFL Draft coverage with a look at the top quarterbacks for this year complete with their strengths and weaknesses and a round projection. On Monday I will cover the Running Backs followed by the Receivers and Offensive Lineman next week.

Today’s blog continues the NFL draft coverage with the top rated small school players. Every year 15-20 small school players get drafted and many turn out to have fine pro careers. Josh Buchanan who runs JBScouting.com does a great job following FCS football and he contributes significantly to my FCS preview. Josh also has scouted for the Texas vs. Nation Game and East Coast Bowl the last few years and has interned with the Carolina Panthers. He has just released his top 100 small school players and will be updating them throughout the month as the pro day workouts are completed.

Here are the Top 100 Small School Players for the 2010 NFL Draft. Read more…

After several years of research I have found that almost 7 out of every 10 teams that rank among the top in the NCAA in players drafted struggle the next year and have a weaker record. I call it the Draft Day Party Hangover Effect.

Today’s blog will give you the first look at which teams will be losing the most players to this year’s draft and which teams might suffer from the Draft Day Party Hangover Effect that appears in my magazine every year.

While the draft is not until April and several players could move up or down on draft boards, I think this early edition will give you a first look to see which teams will be losing the most players to the draft and it maybe a precursor for trouble for many college programs.

For the system I have created, 7 points are awarded if a player was picked in the 1st round. A 2nd round pick garners 5 points, a 3 round pick four, 4th round three and a 5th round two.  In the NFL there’s not much difference between a 6th or 7th round pick and a high quality undrafted free agent signee so I award 1 point to a 6th or 7th round pick. If you need more information please refer to pg 308 in last year’s College Preview magazine. 

Here are the teams that could lose the most possible points in this years draft and again these numbers could change over the next 6 weeks. The numbers in each column represent the number of players being projected right now in each round. Read more…

In the coming weeks at PhilSteele.com we will be posting the latest and greatest information on the 2010 NFL Draft including the top players at each position complete with strengths, weaknesses, bios, draft projections and so much more. You will have all the information you need to become a draft expert right at your fingertips!

The NFL combine is now over and in the coming weeks several colleges will be holding their pro days which will give prospects another opportunity to impress NFL scouts and teams. In today’s blog I will give you those prospects that I feel improved their draft stock at the combine and those that saw their stock fall after disappointing performances.

Make sure to check out Monday’s blog as I will post my first edition of my Draft Day Party Hangover which appears in my college preview magazine each year. This early edition will give you a first look to see which teams will be losing the most players to the draft this year and those teams that might suffer from the Draft Day Party Hangover Effect.

Also don’t forget to check out our Spring Central section to get all the college conference schedules, coaching changes, who’s back/who’s not and my preseason projection of the AP Top 10. Here are the… Read more…

2009 was a memorable year for many of the teams and players in the Mid-American Conference. The ’09 season saw the conference send five of its teams to bowl games for a 2nd straight year and league champ Central Michigan ended the conference’s 14 game bowl losing streak by defeating Troy 44-41 in 2OT in the GMAC Bowl. The Chippewas also finished in the final AP Top 25 at #23.

Temple had one of its best seasons in school history by winning 9 straight games and made their 1st bowl appearance since 1979! Temple HC Al Golden was named MAC coach of the year as the Owls have improved their win total in each of his 4 seasons as coach. With Temple breaking their bowl drought, 11 MAC teams have now been to a bowl game since 2004! 

I was very pleased with the way the East Division played out in ‘09 as my magazine was the only magazine in the country to have Ohio winning the division. Every other magazine had the Bobcats projected 4th or lower! Frank Solich has done a great job here as the Bobcats were just 11-35 in the 4 years prior to his arrival. Since 2006, Ohio is 28-24 including 2 appearances in the MAC Title game! Read more…

In my 2009 College Preview Magazine on pgs 324 and 327 I included my computer’s projected stats in 2009 for all 120 FBS teams. There were several different categories including rush offense/defense, pass offense/defense, offensive pts and defensive pts.

On the right hand side of the page I listed the teams that my computer projected to be most improved in ‘09 compared to ‘08 season in 6 different categories. I had them ranked in order from Most Improved all the way down to the Least Improved and included the top 15 in each category along with the bottom 5.

In today’s blog I have included my projections of the teams I thought would be most improved in pass defense heading into the 2009 season and how they finished in the final NCAA rankings.

In the coming days I will feature a different category in each blog and I think you will be impressed with the results of the accuracy of my projections.

Read more…

In my 2009 College Preview Magazine on pgs 324 and 327 I included my computer’s projected stats in 2009 for all 120 FBS teams. There were several different categories including rush offense/defense, pass offense/defense, offensive pts and defensive pts.

On the right hand side of the page I listed the teams that my computer projected to be most improved in ‘09 compared to ‘08 season in 6 different categories. I had them ranked in order from Most Improved all the way down to the Least Improved and included the top 15 in each category along with the bottom 5.

In today’s blog I have included my projections of the teams I thought would be most improved in rush defense heading into the 2009 season and how they finished in the final NCAA rankings.

In the coming days I will feature a different category in each blog and I think you will be impressed with the results of the accuracy of my projections. Read more…

In my 2009 College Preview Magazine on pgs 324 and 327 I included my computer’s projected stats in 2009 for all 120 FBS teams. There were several different categories including rush offense/defense, pass offense/defense, offensive pts and defensive pts.

On the right hand side of the page I listed the teams that my computer projected to be most improved in ‘09 compared to ‘08 season in 6 different categories. I had them ranked in order from Most Improved all the way down to the Least Improved and included the top 15 in each category along with the bottom 5.

In today’s blog I have included my projections of the teams I thought would be most improved in pass offense heading into the 2009 season and how they finished in the final NCAA rankings.

In the coming days I will feature a different category in each blog and I think you will be happy with the results of the accuracy of my projections.

Read more…