MILITARY BOWL Wednesday, December 28th @ 4:30 p.m. Click on the bowl logo for MORE info!!!!

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Today’s blog will officially start the countdown of my top 30 teams that will appear in the magazine that will hit the news stands on June 7th which is just 20 DAYS AWAY!! Every day now thru June 15th, 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.

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For the next two weeks, I will be taking a look at the conference teams of the decade for 2000-2009. Factored into my analysis will be conference win %, conference and division titles, bowl games and bowl wins. I will also include BCS bowl wins, final AP rankings and number of national championships for the major conferences. There have been several teams who have changed conferences during that time and I will include them in the analysis for any season(s) they were affiliated with that certain conference. I will also be doing a breakdown of how the conference did in bowl games during the decade and I will emphasis the overall win/loss record, the number of BCS bowl wins, and the records against Non-BCS and ranked bowl teams.

While some conferences may have no-brainers as the top team, other conferences were very competitive over the past decade. Here is the schedule for the upcoming week with the conferences I will be analyzing on each date. Read more…

Turnovers can have a huge impact on games and on a team’s season. They can also lead to many misleading final scores. During the season I list all of the previous week’s misleading final scores on PhilSteele.com in my Monday Daily Blog. By reading about them each week you can uncover some underrated and overrated teams throughout the season.

Here are a couple of examples from last year. Iowa St benefitted from +8 in TO’s vs Nebraska and pulled out a 9-7 win. Nebraska turned it over 4 times inside the 5 yard line and lost despite a 362-239 yard edge. The next 2 weeks Iowa St was overrated and they lost by a combined 69-18 vs Texas A&M and Oklahoma St despite only being slight underdogs in each.

Florida St appeared to pummel BYU 54-28 on the road but they only had a 512-475 yard edge as they benefitted from +5 in TO’s. The next week FSU entered the Top 25 but lost to USF at home as a 2 TD favorite 17-7 and BYU bounced back with a 42-23 whipping of Colorado St.

Turnovers can not only make a difference in a game but can make the difference between a winning and losing season. Read more…

For more than 7 years I have published an “Experience Chart” in my National College Football Preview. The old version of this chart just took into account the overall experience from the 2 deep for each squad. Last year I revised the Experience Chart and created a New and Improved version. The new chart uses 20% of the experience grade from the old chart, 20% from the % of lettermen returning, 20% from the % of tackles returning, 20% from the % of yards returning and 20% from the career starts of the offensive line.

The most experienced teams when using the old chart were usually the service academies which play a lot of seniors and juniors. Using the old method (which is listed below) the top 5 most experienced teams in terms of upperclassmen in the two deep are: 1. Hawaii 2. Navy 2. Army 4. UAB and 5. Air Force. Iowa St ranks the highest among BCS teams coming in at #10. Read more…

Today’s blog continues my in-depth look at my New and Improved Experience Chart. For 7 years I had listed an experience chart, which broke down the number of seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen each team had in the two deep and rated the teams experience level with a formula I devised. Last year, I made the experience chart FIVE TIMES better. I am just listing the senior starters, and the seniors in the two deep and the points accumulated by using the system in the magazine (pg 311). In tomorrow’s blog, I will break down each number of starters for the junior, sophomore and freshman classes. The 2nd factor that goes into my overall chart is the % of yards returning which I featured in the April 28th blog. Another factor listed is the % of lettermen returning which I broke down over the Memorial Day weekend and yesterday I discussed the % of tackles returning. Today I will look at the number of career starts returning for offensive lineman. Read more…

First I want to wish everyone a Happy and Safe New Year! I also would like to thank everyone who has been using and reading PhilSteele.com this year. Your support and comments have helped us improve the site tenfold the past couple of years and with your help we will make PhilSteele.com even better in the upcoming year!

Each day during bowl season in my daily blog, I will give you my forecasts on the bowl games taking place that day. My forecasts will include a detailed write-up with my computer’s projected box score including rushing and passing yards, points and turnovers along with a detailed write-up on each game.

Also check out the bowl matchup section to get the latest and greatest information on all the upcoming bowl games including, game by game stats, 2009 recaps, and checklists for every position and intangible.

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Hawaii was starting their 3rd string QB, Bryant Moniz, a walk-on and they trailed Fresno St 42-3 mid-4Q before they got a TD with 7:25 left. The Warriors recovered an onside kick and got another TD with 4:42 left. Fresno St recovered the final onside attempt and finished the game at the Hawaii 22. FSU led 28-3 at the half despite only having a 249-171 yard edge as UH had a 43 yard FG blocked, Moniz was intercepted in the endzone and they also settled for a 33 yard FG. It was 21-3 when Hawaii fumbled a punt at their own 30 with 1:39 left in the half which set up a 17 yd TD pass from Colburn to West with :11 left.

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