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…

In yesterday’s blog I took a look at home records from the past decade and today I will look at how team’s have performed on the road the past decade. Here are the away records for all 120 teams the past 10 years. Read more…

In my July 28 blog, I gave you my homefield edges for 2011 and today I want to take a look at the best home records of the last decade and also look at some interesting variables. First here is the complete list of all 120 teams for home records.

Read more…

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…

Do you think it is easy picking a National Champ prior to the year? Since 1994, only 3 times has the preseason #1 team gone on to win the National Title. In 2008, Georgia was the preseason #1 team but I had FLORIDA to win the title and the Gators delivered for me!! Athlon was the only other source to have Florida #1. In 2007 NO Magazine had LSU or Ohio St #1 (USC was the consensus #1). In 2006, National Champ Florida was not picked #1 by ANY magazine and they were picked anywhere from #4 down to #20. They were #7 in the preseason AP Poll and #8 in the Coaches’ Poll. In 2005 everyone had USC again and no one had the actual Champ, Texas. Only in 1999 (everyone with Florida St), 2001 (two magazines) and 2004 (everyone with USC) did any of the Big 9 preseason magazines correctly pick the National Champ. Read more…

Over the weekend I released my projected preseason AP Top 10 and I thought I would analyze another set of rankings for the upcoming season. A couple of weeks ago, several casinos released their odds for the 2011-12 BCS National Championship. While PhilSteele.com does not affiliate itself with gambling, I do think it is interesting to see how Vegas is examining the upcoming season.

Here are the Top 10 Favorites to win the title this upcoming year courtesy of Bodog.com.

1. Oklahoma             Odds: 7/2

If you checked out my projected AP Top 10 blog, you would have read that the Sooners are clearly the favorite going into next season and the odds certainly agree here. They return 15 starters on off/def including QB Jones, WR Broyles and LB Lewis. Their schedule sets up nicely with a bye before their road trip to Florida St (a team they dominated LY 47-17). In Big 12 play naturally there is the Red River Rivalry game vs Texas who is coming off a 5-7 season and the only other huge hurdle could be the season finale at Oklahoma St but the Sooners have won the Bedlam rivalry 8 straight times and have an overall mark of 82-16-7 vs their in-state rivals. Read more…

Well here it is, my projected AP Top 10 for next year as of February 11, 2011! I will mention it now and I will mention it numerous times throughout today’s blog but this is not MY preseason Top 10 for next year, it is where I project the AP Top 10 to come out at the start of the season.

Most AP voters usually look at a couple of criteria when they evaluate a team for the upcoming season. First they look at the number of returning starters that the team has coming back particularly at the offensive skill positions. A team that returns its starting QB and a combination of its RB and WRs is often times more highly thought of than a team that loses its starting QB but returns its entire offensive line. Similarly a team that returns most of its starters on offense but loses a lot of its defensive playmakers usually is more highly thought of than a team that returns a majority of its defensive starters but loses its skill position players on offense.

Another factor that is heavily weighted is the performance of the team in the bowl game, which undoubtedly is the lasting image of that team in the offseason. A team coming off a huge bowl win usually is more highly thought of than a team that is coming off a bowl loss regardless of what their schedule looks like for the upcoming season.

Using these criteria and a few more, I project the preseason AP Top 10 every year at the conclusion of the previous season, which in most cases is nearly 6 months in advance. Now as you all know, a lot can happen from January to August including injuries, suspensions, transfers, etc. Read more…

The Bowl confidence contest is under way and Congratulations to the top four players who all have perfect scores 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.

Last year we expanded the contest to nearly 1200 contestants, which was double from any other previous season and this year we more than doubled the number of contestants with nearly 3000 entries!

So far thru 3 games a lot of people already have one loss as 64.5% of you picked Fresno St and they were beaten by Northern Illinois. Also only 56.6% of you had Troy winning so the remaining 43.4% of you who picked Ohio in the New Orleans bowl also lost. Most of you (92%) had BYU winning and that came as no surprise as they rolled over UTEP. Here are the top 10 picksheets so far after the first 3 bowl games.

Top 10 Overall Standings Read more…

Here are the four candidates for the 2010 Heisman Trophy. Today, I will give you the PROS and CONS for each winning the Award this year but let me first say that this should be one of the largest landslides in the history of the award and unlike last year the race is for 2nd place this year. The Award comes out on Saturday but here are my projections of the order of finish for this year’s top 4 that have been invited to New York. Read more…