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…

My 2010 College Football Preview Magazine has so much information in it that it would take months to go thru it all. It is like 120 media guides rolled into one. 

Magazine is a loose term for it as the Preview is more like a book with over 100 pages more than any other college football magazine. Not only does it have more pages but the magazine has 2 to 3 times the amount of information on each page! That gives my magazine 3 to 4 times the amount of information of any other magazine!

I mention all of this because there are even parts of the magazine that I myself forget about during the year. Every spring once I have finished my conference write ups, Top 40, All-American and All-Conference Teams I wrap up the “other” pages in the magazine. One of those pages that I find a lot of fun is the projected stats which is on page 324 and 327. Read more…

Expansion Thoughts

The conference expansion/re-alignment situation to me is very similar to all the talk earlier this year of the NCAA Basketball tournament expanding. While I do not follow college basketball, it seemed like every day I turned on SportsCenter I would hear the rumors and possibilities of the tournament expanding to 96 teams but when it was all said and done only three teams were added.

With the news of Texas deciding to stay with the Big 12 (or is it now the new Big Ten?), I think all the expansion talk of there being four 16 super conferences will probably go by the wayside. All the talk about the Big East and ACC being in danger seems moot and I think Utah going to the Pac-10 should probably close all the moves as I do not feel the Big 12 will expand as they will not want to divide the TV pie up among two more teams.

Naturally the Big Ten is now a stronger conference with the addition of Nebraska and are clearly the #2 conference behind the SEC now. The WAC was dealt a severe blow with the loss of Boise to the MWC.

What I do not understand in this whole mess is how the Big 12 can lose two teams with one of them being Nebraska and go from a 70 million dollar TV contract to a 200 million dollar deal. Obviously Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe did a great job of convincing Texas to stay and I am sure Kansas, Kansas St, Baylor and Iowa St fans are glad he did. 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…

In today’s blog, I will finish releasing my Preseason All-Conference Teams with the All-SEC and All-SBC Teams.

In the SEC, Defending National Champion Alabama leads the way with six 1st Team selections led by last year’s Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram who rushed for 1,658 yds (6.1) with 17 TD’s. Read more…

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.

When we receive a recruiting magazine, we translate each player’s ranking into a points system from 1-100 and then log each and every player into the computer and give them a point total from each source. Naturally, the more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated by each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by position and by total points and then rank the players from most points to least.

In today’s blog I have included the top incoming freshman Kickers/Punters and the Top 75 Incoming Jucos for 2010. Each one of these players is ranked in the Top 500 prospects regardless of position and will appear in my preseason magazine. I have also posted the top individual classes for each position. Since we want the college preview to continue to be the most in-depth and accurate magazine out there, if you find any information that is wrong or if you are questioning a player’s ranking please contact brandon@philsteele.com. I will be back on Friday I with the top 75 overall classes and give you my conference by conference recruiting ratings. 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 offensive ppg 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…

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…

Last Friday was the final date that underclassmen could declare for the 2010 NFL Draft. In total 51 players declared early and while some teams were hit hard by the early entries others were more lucky with several players deciding to return for another year. Today I will break which teams were hit hardest and which teams have the best returnees that turned down the NFL.

In Wednesday’s Blog I will give my analysis of whether or not it was a good move/bad move for each player. Read more…