In 2008, Alabama was only ranked #24 at the start of the year. They were just 7-6 in 2007, had just 12 returning starters and faced a schedule that had four brutal road games. They had to take on the preseason ACC Title favorite Clemson in Atlanta, take on the defending national champ LSU in Death Valley where they would be sky high for Saban’s return, face the defending SEC East Champ Tennessee in Knoxville AND take on the 2008 preseason #1 team Georgia on the road. That does not sound like the recipe to vault into the Top 10 let alone become the #1 team in the country.

Alabama amazingly went 12-0 and was ranked #1 in the country at the end of the regular season. They had two MAIN factors in their favor that year. Both their offensive and defensive lines made my Top Units List in the front of the magazine and if you are strong along the line of scrimmage you can control many games. Another factor was that they were much better than a 7-6 team in 2007 as all 6 of their losses in ‘07 were by 7 or less points so they were just a handful of plays away from being 13-0. I did a Best Case/Worst Case scenario for each team in the regional magazines, which takes all of the close wins or losses from the previous year and reverses them to see how close a team was to a much stronger or much weaker season.

So which teams for 2009 had 3 or more losses in ‘08 but ALL of them were close losses? There were TWO teams that fell into that category and they were Iowa and Ole Miss. Both teams lost 4 games in ‘08 with Ole Miss losing by 2, 6, 7 and 4 and Iowa losing by 1, 5, 3 and 3. While Ole Miss (#8 Preseason) did not fly under the radar like Alabama in ’08, Iowa was a team that came out of nowhere and started the season 9-0 and ranked #7! Had QB Ricky Stanzi not been injured in the Northwestern game and sat out the next three, Iowa could have finished unbeaten!!

In ’09 there were three teams that suffered three or more losses last year with none of them by more than seven. They were Notre Dame (6), Connecticut (5) and Pittsburgh (3). While Notre Dame and Pittsburgh fell short of my expectations, Connecticut certainly kept the tradition of the close loss factor alive with a surprising season. The Huskies lost five games in ’09 by 4 points or less and last year they returned 16 starters and I thought that it could be Edsall’s best team yet. While I still picked the Huskies to finish #5 in the Big East, my nine sets of power ratings had them going anywhere from 6-6 to 12-0 (yes, I said 12-0!) and I thought they could be a surprise. When the dust settle the Huskies no doubt became one of the surprise teams of the country taking home their first Big East title and BCS Bowl berth.

So who are the teams this year that had three or more losses last year with none of them by more than seven? There were only two and they were San Diego St who lost 4 games by a combined 15 points and Iowa who lost 5 games by 7, 1, 4, 3 and 3 were either tied or ahead in the 4Q in each of the games!

Iowa

In the magazine, I wrote that Iowa’s 58% lettermen returning are fewest in the Big Ten and while this year’s team is not as strong as 2010′s, Ferentz has built a program which consistently overachieves when expectations are low. The Hawks should have better fortune in the close games and could match LY’s 8 wins. After each season is completed I then go over each and every game played for the upcoming year and give my original forecasts and scores for each game. When going through the Hawkeyes’ schedule I actually have them pegged for 9 wins (6 are by 4 or less), which would come as a surprise to many across the country with the loss of so many high profile players. Don’t be surprised if the Hawkeyes are near the top of the Legends division in mid-November (I have them starting 9-1).

San Diego St

The Aztecs went through several gut-wrenching losses last year. They suffered a tough loss vs Missouri when a key penalty was not called on Missouri’s 68 yd td pass with :51 left. Against BYU they had “replay-gate” with a controversial fumble not overturned by BYU replay officials in the booth. They gave TCU their closest regular season game only losing by 5 but did score a couple of td’s in the 4Q to make it closer than what the final indicated. Against Utah they gave up a 47 yd Hail Mary before the half and a blk’d punt that resulted in a 3 yd td drive in a 4 pt loss. This year Brady Hoke leaves for Michigan, however new HC Rocky Long is well versed in MWC football as he was previously the HC at New Mexico from 1998-’08 where he took the Lobos to bowls in 5 of his last 7 seasons and was the DC here the L/2 years. While not as strong as LY’s squad they do only have 3 MWC road games and I will call for a winning season and a 2nd straight bowl game but I am not as confident as the Aztecs being a possible surprise with the coaching change.

Only 6 Days Until the First College Football Game!!!

I am always looking for new stats and new ways to analyze teams each and every year. In my last blog I gave you some information on how YPP (yards per point) affects a team’s record from season to season and a lot of that information will be featured in my upcoming college preview magazine.

This year I expanded this same type of concept by taking a look at points per play. Generally, you would think that the teams’ with the top scoring offenses in ppg would be ranked at the top but there are some noticeable differences.

First, I think it is amazing to see off efficient Wisconsin’s “run-oriented” offense was a year ago. Most teams that usually put up a lot of points have strong passing attacks but the Badgers’ ground game was clearly explosive this past year as they scored an average  of .63 points per play

Another couple of run-oriented teams that were efficient last year was Michigan St which was just #47 in the NCAA in scoring offense averaging 29.46 ppg but the Spartans did it on just 817 offensive plays which placed them #27 in the country in yards per play.  Ohio actually finished with the best difference in this category as they scored 27.46 ppg (#55) on just 768 plays finishing #31 with 0.46 points per play which was 24 spots higher. Iowa also did well placing 21 spots higher.

Teams that placed lower in the list were actually high scoring teams like Oklahoma (#14 scoring offense NCAA, #45 points per play) and Texas Tech (#23 scoring offense NCAA, #56 points per play) but there “poor” points per play rating is due more to their “hurry up” style offenses in which they run as many plays as possible and while both teams were successful averaging more than 33 ppg, it did take them a lot more plays to accomplish it.

Here is the list of the 120 teams with their points per play from last season.

Points Per Play

1. Miami was dominant from start to finish in their 31-3 win over Pittsburgh. The defense held the Panthers to just 76 total yds in the first half before the offense got going in the 3rd quarter. A couple of QB Harris interceptions kept this game from being even more of a rout.

2. Arizona St despite the loss was very impressive against Oregon. They outgained the Ducks 597-380 but were -5 in TO’s. The Ducks had come into the game as the top total offense and total defense in the NCAA.

3. Iowa rebounded from the loss to Arizona last week with a 45-0 win over Ball St. The Hawkeyes offense put up 562 yds while their #1 total defense gave up just 112 yds.

4. Stanford got their first win at Notre Dame since 1992 and their first back-to-back wins vs the Irish in series history with a 37-14 win. The Cards had a commanding 167-50 rush yd edge and pressured ND QB Crist all day.

5. NC State led by QB Wilson who had a career-high 368 pass yds beat the defending ACC champion Yellow Jackets 45-28. The Wolfpack racked up 527 total yds and their 45 points were the most in series history as they are 4-0 for the first time in nearly a decade.

6. The Wolverines were simply too much for Bowling Green with or without QB Denard Robinson. Michigan had 468 rush yds to go along with 253 pass yds as they had a school-record 721 total yds.

7. The Gators offense finally came alive for the first time this season with their 24th straight win vs Kentucky. Trey Burton broke Tim Tebow’s school-record with 6 total TD’s as the Gators get ready to take on defending champ Alabama this week.

8. Florida St has played lights out at home this year (outscored opponents by a combined 124-16) and yesterday dominated Wake Forest 31-0 with a 485-191 yd edge.

9. The Buckeyes scored their most points (73) since 1960 in the win over hapless Eastern Michigan. QB Terrelle Pryor accounted for 6 TD’s as the #2 Buckeyes continue to roll this season.

10. The #1 Crimson Tide had to come back from a 20-7 2H deficit to beat #10 Arkansas 24-20. While the pass defense allowed 359 yds to Mallett, they intercepted him a couple of times and Alabama controlled the line of scrimmage with a 227-63 rush yd edge.

Over the weekend the preseason AP Top 25 was released with defending national champ Alabama clearly ranked #1. Every year I am particularly intrigued by who is placed in the preseason AP Top 10 as I try to predict what those teams will be shortly after the previous season is completed.

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 7 months in advance. Now as you all know, a lot can happen from January to August and for further proof on that check on my players lost list, which is all the changes that have been made for each team since my magazine was published in May.

Last year my projected Top 10 for the AP Poll was #1 Florida, #2 Texas, #3 USC, #4 Oklahoma, #5 Alabama, #6 Virginia Tech, #7 LSU, #8 Oklahoma St, #9 Ohio St and #10 Mississippi. The actual AP Top 10 was #1 Florida, #2 Texas, #3 Oklahoma, #4 USC, #5 Alabama, #6 Ohio St, #7 Virginia Tech, #8 Mississippi and#9 was a tie between Oklahoma St/Penn St.

I nailed nine of the ten teams that appeared in the Preseason Top 10 with the only exception being LSU/Penn St and I may have had something to do with that. It’s interesting to note that of the main preseason magazines, only two had Penn St ranked in the Top 10 and I had them my #1 surprise team and ranked #5. Most had Penn St out of the Top 10. Perhaps since I had them rated so high in my magazine, it influenced a few voters across the country, bumping them into the Top 10.

This year way back in my February 2nd Blog, I projected the preseason AP Top 10 would be #1 Alabama, #2 Ohio St, #3 Boise St, #4 Oregon, #5 Texas, #6 TCU, #7 Iowa, #8 Florida, #9 Nebraska and #10 Virginia Tech.

The actual AP Top 10 which came out over the weekend was #1 Alabama, #2 Ohio St, #3 Boise St, #4 Florida, #5 Texas, #6 TCU, #7 Oklahoma, #8 Nebraska, #9 Iowa and #10 Virginia Tech.

For the second year in a row I nailed nine of the ten teams that appeared in the Preseason Top 10 with the only exception being Oregon/Oklahoma, which I can defend easily.

First, at the time I wrote my projection back in early February Duck QB Jeremiah Masoli was not yet suspended. With Masoli still in the fold at that point Oregon had 17 returning starters including RB LaMichael James and Masoli in the backfield. The Ducks clearly would have been a preseason Top 10 team and probably Top 5 had Masoli not been kicked off the team. Even without Masoli Oregon was still rated #11 in the preseason poll.

The team that I did not have in my projected AP Top 10 was Oklahoma (#7) and if you have purchased my magazine or listed to one of my radio shows across the country you know I think very highly of the Sooners this year as I have them ranked #1. Like Penn St last year perhaps since I had them rated so high in my magazine, it influenced a few voters across the country, bumping them into the Top 10 despite the Sooners having five losses last year and the fact that they did not even finish in the final AP Top 25.

I also am pleased that six of the 10 teams are ranked in the exact position that I projected way back in February including the top 3 in Alabama, Ohio St and Boise St. I also had Texas, TCU and Virginia Tech ranked in their exact positions in the poll.

So there you have it, next year when you see my preseason AP Top 10 projection in late January or early February go ahead and compare it to the first AP poll that will come out several months later and I know you’ll find that probably 9 or maybe even all 10 will be in the Preseason AP Top 10.

Only 10 Days Until the First College Football Game!

Many of you have asked me for an updated Bowl Projections listing since USC was eliminated from bowl contention recently. In the magazine which went to press before the NCAA’s ruling I projected the Trojans to go to the Rose Bowl. Naturally most of my Pac-10 selections for bowls have changed with the ineligibility of USC. Oregon now gets my pick to go to the Rose Bowl and a lot of the other Pac-10 teams get bumped up. Here are my current projections for all 35 of this year’s bowl games which includes the BCS Championship game.

2010-2011 Bowl Schedule and Projections

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.

June 28 Sun Belt 
June 29 MAC 
June 30 WAC 
July 1 CUSA 
July 2 MWC 
July 3-4 Big East 
Monday Pac-10 
Tuesday ACC 
Yesterday Big 12 
Today Big 10 
Tomorrow SEC 
July 10-11 Conference Bowl Records

The Big 10 has now been at 11 teams since 1993 but that will change next year when Nebraska joins the conference. Throughout much of it’s history, Ohio St and Michigan have dominated the conference with the Wolverines having 42 overall titles and the Buckeyes are 2nd with 34. Their combined 76 titles is nearly as many as all the other Big Ten past or present members have combined (89)! So were Michigan and Ohio St clearly the top two teams in the past decade?

Here are my rankings for Big 10 team of the decade for 2000-2009.

Big 10 Rankings 2000-2009

Ohio St was clearly the team of the past decade with six outright or shared titles including five in a row! In 2002, they captured the Big 10′s first outright national title since 1968 (Michigan shared in ’97). Their 64 wins were 11 more than Michigan and they were the only team to go to 10 straight bowl games. To put into perspective how dominant the Buckeyes were, they were #1 in the conference for each of the ten categories I looked at when ranking the teams! They nearly doubled up the second place finisher in total points.

Coming in at #2 was Michigan who had a good shot at the title but have fallen back the last couple of years. The Wolverines had the 2nd most titles with 3 and they had 7 AP Top 25 finishes. Their four game lead over Iowa in overall wins put them over the top despite having less Top 10 finishes and no BCS Bowl wins.

Kirk Ferentz has done a great job with Iowa and come in at #3 here with 2 titles and an impressive four AP Top 10 finishes including last year when they finished off their season with their Orange Bowl victory over Georgia Tech. Penn St is #4 on the list and had polar opposites parts in the decade. From 2000-04 the Nittany Lions were just 26-33 overall (16-24 in conference play) and had four losing seasons. In 2005, they turned it around and have gone 51-15 overall (29-11 in conference play) and have three AP Top 10 finishes and two Big Ten titles in the last 5 years.

Wisconsin comes in at #5 for 2000-2009 after quite possibly being the Big Ten team of the decade for the 90s with 3 Rose Bowl wins. It is very surprising to me that the Badgers have not won or shared a Big Ten since 1999 but the Badgers did go to nine bowl games and had six finishes in the AP Top 25. Purdue also deserves some mention with an above .500 finish in the decade and made a Rose Bowl appearance in 2000 under former HC Tiller and QB Brees.

Here are the Bowl records for Big Ten teams in the past decade.

Big Ten Bowl Records ’00-09

The conference really struggled in bowl games with a 28-41 overall record (40.6%). Big Ten teams were just 19-27 against ranked teams including just 6-11 in BCS games. Some bright spots were Iowa’s 5-3 overall record and Ohio St finished 4-3 in BCS bowl games. To its credit the conference usually plays top-notch competition as evidence of their 3 total bowl games against non-BCS teams.

I will be back tomorrow with a look at the SEC conference which features a very tight race at the top.

Also please check PhilSteele.com everyday to get my FCS Top 25 Countdown, which continues with #13 Illinois St. Thru July 20th, I will post both magazine pages on a new team ranked in the Top 25 and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your favorite FCS team. Remember those magazine pages are available for only 24 hours for you to download as the next team will be posted the following day.

Only 56 Days Until the First College Football Game!!!

At the end of the 2008 season we devised a formula which plugged in the stats from the just completed season and then factored in the opponents and the site the game was played at and came up with an individual team power rating for each game. I was very pleased that the formula did indeed assign a true power rating for each game and it was highly accurate.

In the weekend blog, I gave you the top 15 individual “game grade” performances from 2009. Today I will give you the teams with the highest game grade averages from last year, which make up my computer’s final Top Ten and compare it to the AP Final Top Ten.

First here is the final AP Top Ten from last year.

1. Alabama
2. Texas
3. Florida
4. Boise St
5. Ohio St
6. TCU
7. Iowa
8. Cincinnati
9. Penn St
10. Virginia Tech

Now here is my Computer’s Final Top Ten from last year.

1. Alabama 96.2 avg
2. Florida 96.0
3. Texas 95.7
4. TCU 92.4
5. Oklahoma 91.2
6. Virginia Tech 88.3
7. Ohio St 86.0
8. Oregon 85.2
9. Texas Tech 84.8
10. Nebraska 84.5

As you can see there are some differences between the polls. Naturally, Alabama was at the top of both polls. My computer had Florida barely ahead of Texas because the Gators schedule was slightly tougher and they outgained opponents by 205 ypg while Texas outgained their foes by 169 ypg. Despite the loss in the Fiesta Bowl, TCU comes in at #4 thanks to their dominating 12-0 regular season that saw the Horned Frogs outgain foes by 217 ypg! Oklahoma is another surprise here coming in at #5 despite their 5 losses. The Sooners lost 4 games by less than a TD and their +133 ypg in conference play was actually the best in the Big 12. Oregon finished just outside the AP Top Ten at #11 while my computer had them at #8 so there was not much of a difference there. Also Texas Tech and Nebraska appear in my computer’s Top Ten while AP #8 Cincinnati (#23 in my computer poll) and AP #9 Penn St (#14) were left out.

Now before Boise, Cincinnati and Iowa fans start to get riled up with these rankings remember this is my computer’s poll and not the way I would have voted the Final AP poll if I was indeed an AP voter. However, due to past research on comparing my computer poll with the AP poll there is a significant trend with how teams do the next year. Teams that are in the AP Final Top Ten but not in my computers are generally overrated the next year while teams that are in my computer’s Top Ten but not in the AP are underrated.

Let’s take a look at several examples.

In 2004, Iowa finished 10-2 and were ranked #8 in the final AP poll but were just #21 in my computer’s final grades. In 2005, Iowa opened up #11 in the AP poll and they went 7-5 and finished out of the rankings. On the opposite end in 2004, LSU did not finish in the AP Top Ten but my computer had them #8. The next year these “underrated” Tigers finished #6 in the country after their thrashing of #9 Miami Florida 40-3 in the bowl.

In 2005, Alabama was 10-2 and finished with a bowl win over Texas Tech and were #8 in the AP poll. They took on my #55 rated schedule and only averaged 21.9 ppg on offense. My computer did not even have them in the top 15. The next year Alabama finished 6-7 and fired HC Shula.

Also in 2005, Louisville was #19 in the AP poll (#8 in my computer) but were actually the most dominant team in the Big East and would have been in the Sugar Bowl if not for a blown lead at West Virginia. The next year Louisville went 12-1 and their only loss was at Rutgers, a game UL actually led 25-7 but lost on a last second FG. Change one play in that game and Louisville would have played Ohio St in the national title game in 2006! The other team not in the AP Top Ten was Michigan (computer #9), which finished 2005 at just 7-5. Michigan took on the 2nd toughest schedule in the country in 2005 and had losses by 7, 3, 3, 4 and 4! The next year (2006) Michigan was 11-0 and #2 in the country when they played #1 Ohio State in Columbus and after losing that game by just 3, many felt they should have played Ohio State in the title game rather than Florida!

In 2006, despite Florida winning the National Title and playing the best game of the year in the biggest game, they were not the best team over the entire course of the season (Computer #4). LSU had a 22-14 FD edge vs them but the Gators won thanks to being +3 in turnovers. Alabama had a couple of late TO’s and lost a late lead. Florida blocked 2 FG’s and a crucial xp to get past South Carolina by 1 point! I got beat up by Gator fans when I had them ranked out of the Top 10 (#14) in the 2007 preseason poll (lower than everyone else) and the Gators finished 2007 at #13. My computer also did not have Boise St in the Top 10 despite their upset of Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl and in 2007 Boise finished unranked.

On the other side, Oklahoma was not in the AP Top 10 at the end of the year but was #8 in my computer’s ranking. In ’07, they won the Big 12 and were #3 at the end of the regular season. My Computer’s #1 team in 2006 was LSU (which was only #3 in the AP poll). How did they fare in 2007? They would “only” go on to win the National Title!

Oregon, Florida and Texas Tech were three 4-loss teams in 2007 that my computer said were Top Ten teams despite their record. How did the “top ten party crashers” (on my computers Top Ten but not in the AP poll) do in 2008? Florida won the national title, Texas Tech was 10-0 and #2 in the country at one point and Oregon finished the year #10 in the final polls.

There were three teams in the AP Top Ten at the end of 2007 that my computer did not have as Top Ten squads. Georgia finished the 2007 season #2 in the final polls but my computer only had them #15 at the end of the year with a 84.7 average game. Only once in 2007 did they even play at over a 100 level and that was a 102.85 effort vs Auburn. They had a 61.05 game in their 35-14 loss to Tennessee and a 78.65 game the next week barely getting past Vanderbilt 20-17 (thanks to a late Vandy fumble). Based on the final record and final game performance they were #2 in the AP in 2007 and #1 in the AP poll in the preseason of 2008. Georgia proved they were overrated in 2008 by finishing #16.

Will those trends continue in 2010? If they do, teams that my computer did not think were Top Ten last year like Boise St, Iowa, Cincinnati and Penn St could disappoint while teams in my computer’s Top Ten like Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas Tech and Nebraska could surprise and this year finish in the Top Ten.

I hope you enjoy the game grade averages as they give you another way of evaluating how well or how poorly your team did last year and they also have proven to be a precursor for the following year.

If you like the game grades averages make sure to check them out on the game-by-game stats for each team in this year’s magazine. At the bottom of the stats page above the year results look for the total game grade average and the ranking below it is my computer’s final ranking.