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. The preseason top HS Senior lists have already been released by ESPN, Rivals, 247 Sports and Scout and all of them were compiled into this Pre-Season list.

In today’s blog I have included the top High School Seniors that will be incoming frosh for 2013. By no means is this list final and it will be fluid until next February after the players sign. 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.

Read more…

For years now I have wanted to put different articles in my magazine but many of you know there is not much available room remaining to squeeze in more information. However through the internet and on my website I can produce 2 or 3 pages of information and not have to worry about space limitations. I have been asked the question of the article above so many times during my radio show circuit that I keep giving the same type of answers over and over.

Similar to my Top 40 and conference order projections, everything that you see in my magazine is a projection of where and what the season will look like at the end of the season. The same goes for my All-Conference teams. Several times I project upperclassmen who have had rather disappointing careers to have breakout seasons and place them on my All-Conference team. Also on occasion I even place true freshmen on my All-Conference teams meaning that I project them to have really big first years. While a true freshman starting an entire year is uncommon, keep in mind on average at least 1 or 2 true freshman make their way into the starting lineup at some point in the year on nearly every team. While freshman standouts who end up being All-Conference or All-American caliber are rare there usually is 1 or 2 breakout freshman each year in college football (see Clemson’s Sammy Watkins LY).

Here is brief history of all the very successful FIRST year players in college football through the years (in date order).

1. Tony Dorsett rushed for 1,586 yds as a freshman at Pitt in 1973 and was the first freshman All-American since Army’s Doc Blanchard did it in1944.

2. Herschel Walker ran for 1,616 yds in 1980 and finished in the Top 3 of the Heisman Trophy Voting while leading the Bulldogs to the National Title.

3. NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith gained 1,341 yds and 13 TD’s and finished No. 9 in the 1987 Heisman Trophy Voting as a freshman RB at Florida.

4. Marshall Faulk broke 10 individual NCAA records as a freshman when he rushed for 1,429 yds and 21 TD’s in 1991.

5. In 1996 Ron Dayne ran for 1,863 yds and 18 TD’s as a frosh. Ironically, Dayne’s freshman season provided the most yds of any of his four seasons and he finished his career as the NCAA’s all-time leading rusher.

6. Virginia Tech’s Michael Vick holds the NCAA FBS mark for the highest passing efficiency rating by a freshman, with 180.4 while totaling 2,425 rush/pass yds and 20 TD’s in 1999. Most impressively he led VT to the national title game vs Florida St that same year!

7. Jared Lorenzen had 3,827 pass yds as a freshman at Kentucky in 2000 and holds the NCAA record for most pass yds gained by a freshman in a season.

8. Brad Smith is the only freshman QB in college football history to have gained both 2,000 yds pass and 1,000 yds rush when he accomplished this in 2002.

9. In 2004, Oklahoma’s Adrian Peterson had the most rushing yds by any NCAA freshman in history with 1,925 and was a Heisman finalist.

10. In 2007, Texas Tech WR Michael Crabtree broke several NCAA freshman records with 134 rec for 1,962 yds and 22 TD’s.

11. Jeremy Maclin in 2007 broke the FBS record for all-purpose yards by a freshman when he racked up 2,776 total yds. It included 375 rush yds, 1,055rec yds and 1,346 yds on returns.

12. Sam Bradford threw for 3,121 yds and 36 TD’s (an NCAA record by a freshman) and only eight picks during his freshman campaign at Oklahoma in 2007. He also completed 69.5 % of his passes, which is the FBS record for highest completion % by a freshman in a season with at least 200 attempts.

13. In 2009, Pittsburgh RB Dion Lewis had 1,799 rush yds, the best rookie performance by a back since North Texas’ Jamario Thomas had 1,801 yds in 2004.

14. This year’s #2 Pick in the NFL Draft, Robert Griffin III threw for 2,091 yds and 15 TD’s and then rushed for 843 additional yds and 13 TD’s as a rookie in 2009.

15. Last year Sammy Watkins did it all as a freshman at Clemson and racked up 2,297 yds in total offense and was a 1st Tm AA as a true frosh. Watkins gained 1,219 yds as a receiver, 231 yards on the ground, 826 yards as a kick returner.

Two years ago I took a lot of flack for putting freshman South Carolina RB Marcus Lattimore on my preseason All-SEC team before he even played a down. In the end, he did not disappoint me when he ran for 1,197 yds (4.8) and was the National Frosh of the Year in 2010! Again last year I put South Carolina freshman phenom DE Jadeveon Clowney on my preseason list and despite not being a regular starter, he had 12 tfl’s and was 2nd Team SEC at the end of the year! I also had Texas RB Malcolm Brown and Georgia RB Isaiah Crowell on my preseason All-Conference teams and the two of them combined for 1,592 rush yds!

As you can see from all the above examples it is not very uncommon for a freshman to step in and make an immediate impact in their inaugural season and this is why each year you will find at least 1 or 2 true freshman who have never played a down of college football make my All-Conference team.

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.
One very important part of my College Football Preview Magazine is an individual player’s “PS#”. You will see them on almost every page and I find them vital in my analysis of a team.  A simple definition for a PS# is my ranking of the players at their positions coming out of high school.

When I receive a recruiting magazine, I translate each player’s ranking into a point system from 1-100.  Each and every player is then logged into the computer and give them a point total from each source. This is a very time-consuming process. Many players are listed by just one or two sources. The higher ranked recruits are mentioned by almost every source. The more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated in each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by each position and by total points. Naturally, the QB with the most total points then becomes PS#1QB for that year. If a player is PS#99QB, that means he ranks 99th in total points of all QB’s coming out of high school that year.

Before I wrap this article up, I would like to go over a couple of commonly used abbreviations that are used. Now you know just what a PS# is. Naturally, the PS stands for Phil Steele, or my rating for the players out of high school. I also use HT often. HT is a Highly Touted athlete. In the past this has been a player who ranks in the Top 100 at his position out of high school. With 50 states that comes out to be about 2 players per state at each position. A VHT (Very Highly Touted) is a player rated among the Top 20 out of HS.

I have changed the HT and VHT guidelines in the past couple of years. At K, the ratings drop to Top 10 for VHT and Top 35 for HT. At TE it is Top 15 for VHT and Top 75 for HT. QB is Top 30 for VHT and Top 100 for HT. WR and RB have two spots on most teams, therefore, the HT number is up to #150 and the VHT is up to #50. Most teams play 3 or 4 LB’s so that number moves to #200 for HT classification and #60 for VHT. The DL’s and DB’s generally have 4 players on the field. The HT classification is now up to #250 at those positions, while a VHT is among the Top 60 out of HS at their unit as a whole. The offensive line, which has 5 spots, is also up to #250 as an HT and up to #100 for a VHT. Many recruiting publications do not distinguish between OL and DL for their lineman. As a general rule, we put them into the OL category so that position has, by far, the largest amount of players.

Also new last year in my College Football Preview on every Top Newcomers list is the number of VHT’s and HT’s that each team brings in this year. For example, Texas signed the most number of VHT’s (22) and HT’s (6) combined with 28 while Ohio St (20) and Alabama (19) also led the way in VHT signings. This is also a nice quick way to compare how your favorite team did in the recruiting wars vs other conf foes. For example, Arkansas St signed 3 VHT players while the rest of the Sun Belt only brought in 4 other VHT players combined! Read more…

National signing day was yesterday as the top rated high school players all over the country sign 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 themselves 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.

One very important part of my College Football Preview Magazine is an individual player’s “PS#”. You will see them on almost every page and I find them vital in my analysis of a team.  A simple definition for a PS# is my ranking of the players at their positions coming out of high school.

When I receive a recruiting magazine, I translate each player’s ranking into a point system from 1-100.  Each and every player is then logged into the computer and give them a point total from each source. This is a very time-consuming process. Many players are listed by just one or two sources. The higher ranked recruits are mentioned by almost every source. The more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated in each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by each position and by total points. Naturally, the QB with the most total points then becomes PS#1QB for that year. If a player is PS#99QB, that means he ranks 99th in total points of all QB’s coming out of high school that year.

While my final recruiting rankings for this year will not be completed for awhile, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at my top overall 250 players.

Phil Steele’s Current 2012 Top 250 Incoming Frosh Read more…

National signing day was yesterday as the top rated high school players all over the country sign 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 themselves 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.

One very important part of my College Football Preview Magazine is an individual player’s “PS#”. You will see them on almost every page and I find them vital in my analysis of a team.  A simple definition for a PS# is my ranking of the players at their positions coming out of high school.

When I receive a recruiting magazine, I translate each player’s ranking into a point system from 1-100.  Each and every player is then logged into the computer and give them a point total from each source. This is a very time-consuming process. Many players are listed by just one or two sources. The higher ranked recruits are mentioned by almost every source. The more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated in each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by each position and by total points. Naturally, the QB with the most total points then becomes PS#1QB for that year. If a player is PS#99QB, that means he ranks 99th in total points of all QB’s coming out of high school that year.

While my final recruiting rankings for this year will not be completed for awhile, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at my top overall 100 players.

Phil Steele’s Current 2012 Top 100 Incoming Frosh

Read more…

National signing day is today as the top rated high school players all over the country sign 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 themselves 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.

One very important part of my College Football Preview Magazine is an individual player’s “PS#”. You will see them on almost every page and I find them vital in my analysis of a team.  A simple definition for a PS# is my ranking of the players at their positions coming out of high school.

When I receive a recruiting magazine, I translate each player’s ranking into a point system from 1-100.  Each and every player is then logged into the computer and give them a point total from each source. This is a very time-consuming process. Many players are listed by just one or two sources. The higher ranked recruits are mentioned by almost every source. The more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated in each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by each position and by total points. Naturally, the QB with the most total points then becomes PS#1QB for that year. If a player is PS#99QB, that means he ranks 99th in total points of all QB’s coming out of high school that year.

While my final recruiting rankings for this year will not be completed for another week, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on how some of my top players did from the class of 2011 at the QB spot.

Last year 15 True Frosh QB’s started at least one game for a total of 93 starts. 5 of them were in my Top 30 ranked QB’s coming out of HS including Teddy Bridgewater and Braxton Miller who both had Top 10 PS#’s and also both finished on my postseason All-Frosh team.

Here are my top 30 QB’s from last year (all VHT) and how they did statistically last year as a true frosh. I also included all the QB’s and their stats who started a game. Read more…