By Phil Steele

Tonight at 7:30 pm ET the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl featuring Ball St and UCF kicks in beautiful St Petersburg. Each day there is a bowl I will have a breakdown of the game here on my blog. But if you can’t wait for the actual writeup, make sure you download my FREE Bowl Guide which gives you a glimpse of each game being played this bowl season. The Bowl Guide includes Stat Leaders, Past Meetings, Bowl Records, Game By Game Stats and Previous Bowl Game Results. Everything you need for this post season at your fingertips! Here is the forecast for today’s bowl. Make sure you check back on Saturday, December 22nd for the New Orleans and Las Vegas Bowls and download that Bowl Guide today!

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By Phil Steele

GAMES NOTES:
Akron gave Toledo a game. In fact, leading 3-0 they brought in backup QB Pole on the 3rd series and Pole led them 81/14pl and UA took a 10-0 lead with 14:03 left in the 2Q. The drive began when UT was SOD on 4&2 at their 19. UT went 75/6pl and 85/8pl. Austin Dantin hit a 55 yd td pass to Pasquale and finished 29-35-327 yds. UA answered with an 81/7pl drive for a td with 5:44 left, 17-14. UT punted on their next poss but then took the momentum going 77/5pl for a td with 1:37 left in the half. At the half UT had a 295-257 yd edge. The 3Q opened with 3 punts. UA then went 46/17pl but were SOD on 4&gl from the 16. UT went 51/7pl but was int’d at the UA19 but UT went 62/12pl for a td, 28-17 (9:56) then after an int drove 25/3pl for a td with 8:19 left to go up 18 pts, 35-17. UT fmbl’d a punt with 5:59 left and UA went 45/7pl for a td with 3:30 left but UT rec’d the onside kick, got a FD to the UA36 and took a knee.

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By Phil Steele

GAMES NOTES:

Ball St solidified its bowl standing and Ohio’s banged up team kept sliding. The Bobcats missed as many as 10 players due to injury but did only trail 21-17 at the half. Ball St lost their starting QB Keith Wenning who hit 16-20-172. Veteran Kelly Page came in and ran 7 yards for a td on his only play of the 1H and OU did get to the BSU12 with :12 left in the half but was sacked on the final play and did not score. OU got a 58 yd td run by Blankenship on the first drive of the 2H to take a 24-21 lead but Ball got a 68 yd Edwards run keying a 71/2pl drive for a td and OU missed a 27 yd FG. After 2 punts, BSU went 59/10pl for a 38 yd FG and OU went on an 11pl drive for a 34 yd FG, 31-27. Ball, after a 46 yard KR and a 15 yd penalty on a personal foul, drove 38/1pl for a td then after a punt went 65/6pl for a td and after OU went 3&out again, went 77/8pl for a td and turned it into a 52-27 rout with 2:18 left. Page hit just 5-7-41 rushing 4x’s for 34 yards.

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By Phil Steele

GAMES NOTES:

Toledo had a 526-446 yd edge and benefited from a 3-1 TO edge but still lost to Ball St at home. Toledo had entered the AP Poll for the first time since 2001 and as you see many times, teams that enter the AP for the first time in a long time, usually struggle with the attention that next week. Ball St took their opening 2 drives 82/11 and 87/7pl for td’s to lead 14-0 but UT battled back to 17-17 at the half and had a 350-220 yd edge at the half. UT had settled for a 29 yd FG. BS got a 61/10pl drive for a td to open the 3Q then missed a 35 yd FG and UT went 75/14pl. They settled for a 22 yd FG to make it 24-20. UT went 25/4pl and on 4&1 got a 16 yd td run to lead 27-24. BS tied it on a 30 yd FG with 9:41 left. UT went 68/7pl. After the game, Campbell was questioned for going for it on 4&1 on their next drive as they went 68/7pl and based on them settling for 2 short FG’s and the fact they had a td on the last 4&1, he probably made the right decision but UT was stuffed with 6:02 left. BS then went 86/11pl and got a 13 yd td run with 1:43 left to take the lead 34-27. UT on 4&7 from its own 27 fired incomplete.

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GAMES NOTES:

Any time the weather gets cold for Miami, they tend not to show up so Notre Dame had a large edge in the unusually chilly temps in Chicago. UM was also off two wire-to-wire gut wrenching ACC conf games and now travelling in a non-conf game. As you would expect, ND had a 34-13 FD edge, 587-285 yd edge and held the ball for 39:08 to UM’s 20:52. Both teams were ranked in the top 10 when they met in four consecutive years from ‘87-’90 with the winner going on to win the National Title 3 straight years. UM WR Dorsett did have 2 open td passes that he dropped and he was also wearing gloves and full long sleeves while most Irish players were in short sleeves. ND went 88/10pl for a td then after each team drove for a short FG, the Irish made a 32 yd FG and missed a 34 yd FG and only led 13-3 at the half. ND went 81/6pl for a td, then 86/12 for a td as it got chillier as the night went on in the 2H. ND went 66/3pl for a td and after UM was SOD at the ND7, the Irish took over with 9:51 left and went on an 8:45 drive adding a 1 yd td run with 1:06 left for the dominating win. Read more…

Here are my projections for games being played on Saturday, October 6th.

I list the projected scores from my computers forecast. Another column shows you the computers yardage forecast for each game. I think it will be interesting to see who the computer picks to win the yardage battle and see if they win the game. In my College Football magazine I have the plus and minus ratings. I update them weekly and then factor in the home edge and I will show you who the Plus Minus ratings forecast. I will also list who Vegas has favored to win each week and we can see how they do picking the actual winners of games. There is also a WEEKLY POLL which you can enter for free each week.

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GAME NOTES

Stanford went on the road for the first time and led 13-3 late 3Q but on a key play of the game, Washington on 4&1 got a 61 yd Sankey td run to get back in it. They later got a 35 yd td pass with 4:54 left and SU’s last gasp was a 4&4 incomplete pass with 1:46 left. Josh Nunes hit 18-37-170. It was UW’s first win over a top 10 team since 2009 and the student section poured on to the turf of CenturyLink Field at the end and actually gave them more of a home field edge than I thought they would playing away from their home stadium this year. UW finished with a 313-235 yd edge and 13-10 FD edge.

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Today’s blog starts 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. In 2009, I made the experience chart FIVE TIMES better.

Today I will look at the number of career starts returning for offensive lineman.

When most folks judge a team for the upcoming season they look at the QB, RB and WR’s that are returning. A few may take the time to look at star defensive players that are back (those with a lot of sacks or interceptions). However, very few look at the offensive line and yet the team that controls the line of scrimmage wins the game more often than not.

This year Ball St is the top team in the country with 115 career starts returning and they are clearly one of the top OL in the MAC with a couple of players making my Preseason All-MAC team. NC State is #2 with 112 starts returning and when you add that stat with a very good QB in Mike Glennon, you have a dangerous Wolf Pack team this year.   While everyone likes to talk about the dangerous skill positions that West Virginia has this year in QB Geno Smith, WR Tavon Austin and WR Stedman Bailey their OL is actually tied for #3 in the country with 105 career starts returning and that is yet another reason why the Mountaineer offense should be among the best in the country this year.

At the bottom of the list is Rice who has just 15 starts returning. Penn St and Virginia Tech are the 2 lowest BCS conference teams with just 17 career starts returning for each team and clearly the OL are my biggest question marks on both of those teams especially the Hokies.

Now experience on the O-line is not the only criteria for an offensive line’s potential for the next year. You have to add in the Blue Chips, how last year’s line performed (ypc rushing and sacks allowed), size, etc. That is how a team like USC can be just #66 in career starts returning but rated as my #4 overall OL this year.

Here are the rankings for all 124 teams with regards to Career OL Starts Returning.

Career OL Starts Returning

Please check PhilSteele.com everyday to get my Top 40 Countdown which continued today with #20 USF and #19 Michigan St. Every day now thru June 12th, I will post both magazine pages on each team that day and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your favorite team. Remember I will make those magazine pages available for only 24 hours for you to download.

I have gotten many requests to do a blog to explain how I compute each teams home field edge in the magazine. I have 27 different factors in my computer’s grade of a team. I then compare the computer’s analysis to my own and make the final decision.

While I mention that there are 27 factors in my home field computer ratings, there are actually nine individual factors that I use each year and I then combine the grades for the last three years giving half of the grade to last year, 30% to the numbers from two years ago and 20% to the computer rankings from three years ago.

Today I will go over the nine different areas that I use to rate home field edge. The first category is the stadium capacity. The largest stadium in the country last year was Penn St which held 107,282 and my computer gave them the maximum score of 6 for that category. My home field edges go from 0 to 6 in the magazine so they have the same scale in the computer. The smallest capacity is Idaho’s Kibbie Dome which seated just 16,000 and they received a 0 in that category. The rest of the capacities are done with a simple equation of Capacity-16,000 divided by 15,250. The reason I divide by 15,250 is that Penn St at 107,282-16,000 = 91,282 and 91,282 divided by 6 (0-6 scale) = 15,214 and I rounded up to get the 15,250. You can figure out what your favorite team is graded in this category by using this simple equation.

The second category is actual attendance reported by the school in 2010. Once again Michigan was at the top with 111,825 and this time the team at the bottom was Ball St which averaged just 8,947 fans per game last year. I used the same method as above to turn this data into a 0 to 6 rating where Michigan received a 6, Ball St a 0 and as an example Florida St with an attendance of 71,270 earned a 4.15 grade. Read more…

2010 was a memorable year for many of the teams and players in the Mid-American Conference. The ’10 season saw the conference send four of its teams to bowl games and both MAC Championship game participants Miami, Oh and Northern Illinois each won their bowl games. Both the RedHawks and Huskies also finished in the final AP Top 30 and Miami, Ohio had one of the greatest single season turnarounds in college football history going from a 1-11 record in 2009 to a 10-4 season last year which included a MAC Championship.

2010 was also a banner year for several MAC players including Toledo WR/KR Eric Page who was named 1st-Tm All-America by several different services after avg 31.3 yds per return with 3 TD’s. Page also had 99 rec (11.2) and 8 TD’s. Read more…