Well here it is, my projected AP Top 10 for next year as of January 30, 2012! 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 WR’s 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. Read more…
Categories: Offseason Notes, Phil Steele News Tags: 2012, Alabama, AP Top 10, Arkansas, blog, college football, Florida St, Georgia, LSU, Michigan, Oklahoma, Oregon, phil steele, Projection, South Carolina, USC, West Virginia
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…
Categories: Offseason Notes Tags: Alabama, bcs, blog, Boise St, college football, florida, Florida St, LSU, national championship, Nebraska, odds, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn St, phil steele, TCU
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…
Categories: Offseason Notes Tags: Alabama, AP, AP Top 10 Projection, Arkansas, blog, Boise St, college football, Florida St, LSU, Nebraska, Ohio St, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Oregon, phil steele, South Carolina, Stanford, Texas A&M, Top 10, wisconsin
The AP Poll was released over the weekend and today I can officially come up with Overrated and Underrated teams for the upcoming year.
First, here is the Preseason AP Top 25. Read more…
Categories: Offseason Notes Tags: ap poll, Arizona, Auburn, blog, college football, Georgia Tech, Houston, LSU, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Overrated, phil steele, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Texas, Underrated, wisconsin
The college football season is fast approaching and in today’s blog I will give you a sneak peak at some of the early marquee college football non-conference games and how I think they will shake out as of right now. Also included is your current voting tallies for each of these games.
Remember if you visit the homepage right now, you can get a head start on voting in the Non-Conference Poll with all the non-conference games. To see where you rank against other voters, as soon as your vote is entered in, you will see the % stacked with or against you. In the next day or two the four remaining non-BCS conferences will be added on the front page. The Non-Conference Poll will run until Sunday, Aug 29th. On Monday the 30th, look for the Weekly Polls to start. There are games every day Thursday September 2nd thru Monday September 6th as the first week of the season looks to kick off with a bang! Weekly prizes will be awarded throughout the season. Read more…
Categories: College Football Forecasts, College Football Picks Tags: Alabama, Arizona St, Auburn, blog, Boise St, Clemson, college football, Connecticut, Florida St, Forecasts, LSU, Marquee Games, Miami Fl, Michigan, Non-Conference Polls, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Ohio St, Oklahoma, Oregon, Oregon St, Penn St, phil steele, Pittsburgh, TCU, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia Tech, wisconsin
Today’s blog will continue with my series of analyzing the most/leas 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 breakdown total defensive yards.
There are many factors that contribute to a significant change in pass defense. First, a team may see significant improvement if they return a bunch of experienced starters especially in the defensive backfield. Naturally a team that loses a bunch of starters especially their cornerbacks and safeties could see a significant drop in pass defense. Read more…
Categories: Offseason Notes Tags: blog, college football, Least Improved, LSU, Memphis, Mississippi St, most improved, NC State, Pass Defense, phil steele, UNLV, Wyoming
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. Read more…
Categories: Bowl Projections Tags: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, bcs, Bog, Bowl Projections, Capital One Bowl, college football, Cotton Bowl, fiesta bowl, florida, Gator Bowl, Georgia, Iowa, LSU, Miami Fl, Michigan, National Title, Nebraska, Ohio St, Oklahoma, orange bowl, Oregon, Outback Bowl, Penn St, phil steele, Pittsburgh, rose bowl, Sugar Bowl, TCU, Texas, wisconsin
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…
Categories: Team of the Decade Tags: Alabama, Auburn, blog, college football, florida, Georgia, LSU, phil steele, SEC, Stephen F Austin, Team of the Decade, Tennessee