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…

From 2005-’08 I published an article titled Coaching Changes in my College Football Preview magazine. Each year I try to make the magazine a little bit bigger and a little bit better but we’re capped out at 328 pages so Coaching Changes does not appear in my 2010 magazine. We have had a lot of requests for this article and since the website has an unlimited amount of room, PhilSteele.com is a great vehicle to continue publishing this article and I will do so each year. Read more…

As you know I’ve always spent about 90% of my time on college football but I am very excited about our NFL Magazine. I have the same desire to mirror my success of being college footballs “most accurate” magazine by becoming the most accurate NFL Magazine as well. In this years magazine (which is now available) I project each of the division races with records. I want to share just how much work and research goes into making these forecasts.

I’ve posted several articles on my blog including: repeating as a division champ and slipping and sliding can help you analyze a teams fortunes. These are just part of the research I do annually to make my predictions. The schedule is of course an important part of analyzing the upcoming season. Read more…

Today’s blog will start a series, which will analyze the most/least improved units over the last 20 years. Each day this week I will have a new offensive or defensive statistical category to examine and today I will start with offensive rush yards.

There are many factors that contribute to a significant change in rush yards. First, a new coach may come in and prefer a more run-oriented attack than the previous coach. Naturally a lot more rushing carries will usually equal a lot more yards. Similarly you may see a significant drop in rush yards if the new coach features a pass-happy offense than the previous coach. Read more…

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…

2009 was a memorable year for many of the teams and players in the Mid-American Conference. The ’09 season saw the conference send five of its teams to bowl games for a 2nd straight year and league champ Central Michigan ended the conference’s 14 game bowl losing streak by defeating Troy 44-41 in 2OT in the GMAC Bowl. The Chippewas also finished in the final AP Top 25 at #23.

Temple had one of its best seasons in school history by winning 9 straight games and made their 1st bowl appearance since 1979! Temple HC Al Golden was named MAC coach of the year as the Owls have improved their win total in each of his 4 seasons as coach. With Temple breaking their bowl drought, 11 MAC teams have now been to a bowl game since 2004! 

I was very pleased with the way the East Division played out in ‘09 as my magazine was the only magazine in the country to have Ohio winning the division. Every other magazine had the Bobcats projected 4th or lower! Frank Solich has done a great job here as the Bobcats were just 11-35 in the 4 years prior to his arrival. Since 2006, Ohio is 28-24 including 2 appearances in the MAC Title game! Read more…

Here are my selections for this week’s NFL Action:

Seattle at Green Bay

Including playoffs this is the 4th straight season with a meeting between the teams. In their last meeting Green Bay went into Seattle and beat them 27-17. Green Bay had a 313-177 yard edge vs a very depleted Seattle team that started its #3 quarterback due to injuries. Seattle had a 17-3 lead when the Packers scored 24 unanswered points then allowed a garbage TD late in the 4^th quarter. Green Bay QB Rodgers had 208 yards (70%) with 2 TD’s. Green Bay’s #2 rush defense which is allowing 89 yards per game (3.9 ypc) at home this year vs weak Seattle rush attack. Rodgers has averaged 269 yards per game (66%) with a 13-3 ratio at home this year and has only been sacked 6 times in the last four games prior to Pittsburgh. Seattle’s #16 pass rush has been balanced this year pulling in 12 sacks on the road but are allowing 290 yards per game (71%) with a 15-4 ratio on the road. Seattle has been outgained by 138 yards per game in the 4 games prior to Tampa Bay as their defense wears down & defenses have figured out how to expose the offensive line. Green Bay has lots to play for as they want the #5 seed, have a road trip to Arizona on deck & Seattle simply doesn’t travel well with their only road win this year being vs a St Louis team that started Boller.

PHIL’S FORECAST: GREEN BAY 27 Seattle 10

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Navy QB Dobbs has a small crack in his kneecap from a prior inj in HS that will have to be repaired, but he is hoping to play thru the injury and have it fixed after the season….

Michigan’s Rich Brooks isn’t hiding his quarterback decision this week.  He’s said true frosh Morgan Newton will start….

S Carolina is looking to avenge last year’s loss to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is coming off a 34-10 loss to Georgia and South Carolina’s 20-6 loss at Alabama….

Read more…