Remember when Oklahoma won the National Title in 2000? Not a single OU starter lost a single start due to injury! My research has shown that teams that benefited from very few injuries, in this case 6 or less, usually have a weaker season the next year.

The bottom line is, teams that have suffered a lot of injuries the previous year will generally have a better year the next season. A lot of backups were forced to play during the injury-riddled year, gaining valuable experience and the team figures to not be so injury-prone the next year.

In a study over the last 8 years, my research shows that if a team had 32 or more starts lost to injury the prior season, they improved or had the same record the next year on 62 out of 76 occasions for an 81.6% success rate. How about teams that are really banged up? Well from 2001-2005 12 teams went through seasons of having 40 or more combined starts lost and ALL 12 had the same or better record the next season. It surprises me that 17 teams met that criteria in 2006-’07 but only 7 had a stronger record the next year and 9 had a weaker record.

In 2008, Utah was at the top of the chart with 51 starts lost to injury and they went from 9-4 to 13-0 and #2 in the country! 2010 was another solid year as 9 teams had 35 or more starts lost to injury in ‘09 and 8 of the 9 improved or had the same record (88%!). Here are the teams that suffered 32 or more starts lost to injury last year:

Most Amount of Starts Lost to Injury in 2011

Read more…

National signing day was yesterday as the top rated high school players all over the country sign 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 themselves 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.

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.

While my final recruiting rankings for this year will not be completed for awhile, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at my top overall 100 players.

Phil Steele’s Current 2012 Top 100 Incoming Frosh

Read more…

National signing day is today as the top rated high school players all over the country sign 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 themselves 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.

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.

While my final recruiting rankings for this year will not be completed for another week, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on how some of my top players did from the class of 2011 at the QB spot.

Last year 15 True Frosh QB’s started at least one game for a total of 93 starts. 5 of them were in my Top 30 ranked QB’s coming out of HS including Teddy Bridgewater and Braxton Miller who both had Top 10 PS#’s and also both finished on my postseason All-Frosh team.

Here are my top 30 QB’s from last year (all VHT) and how they did statistically last year as a true frosh. I also included all the QB’s and their stats who started a game. Read more…

Every year in my magazine, I list my Top Non-AQ teams for that particular year and over the course of the last six seasons I have had great success!

In 2006, my top non-AQ team was Boise St and I PROJECTED THEM INTO A BCS BOWL and they went undefeated and got to the Fiesta Bowl where they beat Oklahoma. In 2007, I called for Hawaii to go 12-0 and grab a SUGAR BOWL BERTH and that is exactly what they did!

In 2008 my top non-AQ team was Utah and while they were NOT RANKED in the preseason and no one picked them to even win the MWC at the start of the year except me, they finished unbeaten and #2 in the country! In 2009 my Top non-AQ team was Boise St and when they beat TCU in the Fiesta Bowl they finished #4 and the top non-AQ team in the country. In 2010 it was FIVE in a row. EVERYONE had Boise St as their top non AQ team but I went against the grain and picked TCU and coach Patterson and company did not disappoint as they knocked off Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl and finished #2 in the country, naturally the top rated non AQ team out there (Boise #9!) Read more…

Every year people ask me who my favorite team is. It is the team I pick #1. Last year I rooted AGAINST Alabama almost every week as my magazine was about the only one out there not to pick them to win (or even play in) the title game. This year I picked them #1 and it was not easy but I will admit I rooted for the Tide each week and they held LSU to under 100 yards (4 to 1 yardage edge) last night in a dominating 21-0 national title win!!!

The Daily blog will be undergoing some changes in the next couple of days now that the college football season is complete. Tomorrow’s blog will give you some bowl notes on 15 bowl games with also some top bowl performances from a stats perspective in Friday’s blog. Later on this week you will get my forecasts for the NFL Divisional games played that day including my computer’s projected box score of the games.

Starting next week I will be going to a Monday, Wednesday and weekend blog format until magazine season is over in late spring/early summer. In early February, my projection of what the Preseason AP top 10 will be for 2012 and that will be coming after January 15th when juniors have to declare or not declare for the NFL Draft. I also will be updating you with 2012 NFL Draft and 2012 Frosh Recruiting updates. Read more…

Terry Bowden, Akron-At first I wondered why the Zips would fire a coach after only 2 years unless they had a big name coach in hand and obviously Terry Bowden is a big name. He had the undefeated season at Auburn, has had some recent success at Div II North Alabama and is the biggest name here since Gerry Faust and will have more success than what Faust had here.

Rich Rodriguez, Arizona-At each of Rodriguez’ last two stops he did not have a mobile QB in place when he took over and naturally was under intense pressure from the outset at Michigan. He will have no such problem here as Matt Scott has plenty of experience, is a mobile QB that can also throw and former HC Stoops did him a favor by redshirting him this past season. Read more…

The Bowl confidence contest is under way and Congratulations to the top player (Noles 1959) who has a perfect score thru the first three games with a perfect 102 pts. However many times the players that rank in the top early are those that wagered the most pts and if you are not on the top leaderboard right now, naturally you still have plenty of opportunities to rise up/fall down the standings in the coming weeks.

Two years ago we expanded the contest to nearly 1200 contestants, which was double from any other previous season and last year we more than doubled the number of contestants with nearly 3000 entries! This year we topped that 3000 mark and have our largest entry pool to date!

So far thru 3 games a lot of people already have one loss as 80.6% of you picked San Diego St and they were beaten by Louisiana on the final play. Also 43.5% of you had Ohio winning so the remaining 56.5% of you who picked Utah St in the Potato Bowl bowl also lost. Most of you (72.6%) had Temple winning and that came as no surprise as they rolled over Wyoming. Only 900 out of more than 3000 remain perfect. Here are the top 10 picksheets so far after the first 3 bowl games.

Top 10 Overall Standings

Read more…

Phil Steele’s 2011-12
Bowl Confidence Contest

Pick the Winners of all 35 Bowl Games and rank them in order of 1-35 with 35 being your most confident pick and 1 being your least confident pick.

FREE to ENTER with Cash Prizes!!!

1st Place: $250 and a Set of 2012 Preview Magazines
2nd Place: $100 and a Set of 2012 Preview Magazines
3rd Place: $50 and a Set of 2012 Preview Magazines

One Picksheet Per Person!

All picks must be completed by Saturday Dec 17th at 2:00 PM EST

The last couple of years I have had a Bowl Confidence Contest that generated a lot of interest on our site and we had hundreds and hundreds of entries. Two years ago we had the biggest entry pool yet with nearly 1200 entries and it was a huge success with more than double the amount of entries compared to ‘08! Last year we outdid ourselves again with an incredible 2922 entries! This year we will again have a “Bowl Confidence Contest” and I hope there will be many more participants!

You can enter the contest by simply clicking here. To enter, just go to the sign up page and log in your information. Then after that go to your picksheet page and simply pick who you think will win each of the 35 bowl games. You then award your confidence points to each. The team you think will definitely win their game would get 35 points and the team who you picked at the bottom which was very tough for you to call would get 1 point.

For each team that wins their bowl game that you picked correctly, you get the confidence points you assigned to them. Those with the highest points are the winners. The first bowl game takes place on December 17th at 2:00 PM EST and Good Luck!!

One Bowl Entry Per Person Please!! For more contest rules click here and if you have any questions or concerns please email brandon@philsteele.com.

Make Your Group and Compete Against Your Friends!

Also make sure to check PhilSteele.com everyday for complete information and coverage on all the bowl matchups. On the homepage click on the Bowl Matchups link, where you will find all 35 bowl games. Click on the bowl logo for each game to get all the information you need to become an expert! Start doing your homework now and get your 35 bowl predictions done.

The last couple of years I have had a Bowl Confidence Contest that generated a lot of interest on our site and we had hundreds and hundreds of entries. Two years ago we had the biggest entry pool yet with nearly 1200 entries and it was a huge success with more than double the amount of entries compared to ‘08! Last year we outdid ourselves again with an incredible 2922 entries! Congratulations again to Jim Martin the winner of the 2010-11 Bowl Confidence Contest!! Jim finished with an amazing 518 points and took home the grand prize of $250 and a set of 2011 magazines. Jim Logue finished in 2nd with 503 points and got $100 and a set of magazines while Rob Simunovic finished in 3rd with 494 points and got $50 and set of magazines. The last couple of years I was at a disadvantage as I posted my plays first and they were up for everyone to see before they made their plays but I am pleased that I routinely finish in the Top 10%.

This year we will again have a “Bowl Confidence Contest” and I hope there will be many more participants! Like the last couple of years I will update two categories after each bowl game. The first category is total points. If you picked a team and they won their bowl you receive the points that you risked. Sometimes the early leaders are the ones that risked the most on the early bowls and they fall by the wayside as the contest goes on. Sometimes the early leaders in this category will remain at the top through it all it all. I will also keep track of those that have the best win percentage of their points. The morning after each bowl game I will list the current leaders in two categories on the website. Like last year we will have great prizes with 1st place getting $250 and a set of 2012 magazines!! 2nd place receives $100 and a set of magazines and 3rd place $50 and a set of magazines!!

You can enter the contest by simply clicking here. To enter, just go to the sign up page and log in your information. Then after that go to your picksheet page and simply pick who you think will win each of the 35 bowl games. You then award your confidence points to each. The team you think will definitely win their game would get 35 points and the team who you picked at the bottom which was very tough for you to call would get 1 point. For each team that wins their bowl game that you picked correctly, you get the confidence points you assigned to them. Those with the highest points are the winners. The first bowl game takes place on December 17th at 2:00 PM EST and Good Luck!!

One Bowl Entry Per Person Please!! For more contest rules click here and if you have any questions or concerns please email brandon@philsteele.com.

Also make sure to check PhilSteele.com everyday for complete information and coverage on all the bowl matchups. Later this week on the homepage click on the Bowl Matchups link, where you will find all 35 bowl games. Click on the bowl logo for each game to get all the information you need to become an expert! Start doing your homework now and get your 35 bowl predictions done.

Two years ago I started a weekly blog that included my surprise fantasy picks for each week of the college football season. Each week I picked the players that were flying under the radar and I am pleased that I finished my first year at a very successful 83-29-7 (74%). Last year I had another successful year with a winning week every week and an overal 103-45-17 (70%) record.

This year I will again be giving you the surprise fantasy picks each and every week in my Thursday daily blog and here are my picks for Week 10. Keep in mind you will not find players like Andrew Luck, Denard Robinson, LaMichael James or Justin Blackmon in my picks. These are strictly surprise picks of players who are flying under the radar. Last week I went 6-4. I am currently 81-41-10 (66%) on the picks so far this season and the last 6 weeks I am 51-18-1 (74%).

QUARTERBACKS:

My QB of the Week: Tyler Tettleton, Ohio Read more…