All week long 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…

Expansion Thoughts

The conference expansion/re-alignment situation to me is very similar to all the talk earlier this year of the NCAA Basketball tournament expanding. While I do not follow college basketball, it seemed like every day I turned on SportsCenter I would hear the rumors and possibilities of the tournament expanding to 96 teams but when it was all said and done only three teams were added.

With the news of Texas deciding to stay with the Big 12 (or is it now the new Big Ten?), I think all the expansion talk of there being four 16 super conferences will probably go by the wayside. All the talk about the Big East and ACC being in danger seems moot and I think Utah going to the Pac-10 should probably close all the moves as I do not feel the Big 12 will expand as they will not want to divide the TV pie up among two more teams.

Naturally the Big Ten is now a stronger conference with the addition of Nebraska and are clearly the #2 conference behind the SEC now. The WAC was dealt a severe blow with the loss of Boise to the MWC.

What I do not understand in this whole mess is how the Big 12 can lose two teams with one of them being Nebraska and go from a 70 million dollar TV contract to a 200 million dollar deal. Obviously Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe did a great job of convincing Texas to stay and I am sure Kansas, Kansas St, Baylor and Iowa St fans are glad he did. Read more…

Turnovers can have a huge impact on games and on a team’s season. They can also lead to many misleading final scores. During the season I list all of the previous week’s misleading final scores on PhilSteele.com in my Monday Daily Blog. By reading about them each week you can uncover some underrated and overrated teams throughout the season.

Here are a couple of examples from last year. Iowa St benefitted from +8 in TO’s vs Nebraska and pulled out a 9-7 win. Nebraska turned it over 4 times inside the 5 yard line and lost despite a 362-239 yard edge. The next 2 weeks Iowa St was overrated and they lost by a combined 69-18 vs Texas A&M and Oklahoma St despite only being slight underdogs in each.

Florida St appeared to pummel BYU 54-28 on the road but they only had a 512-475 yard edge as they benefitted from +5 in TO’s. The next week FSU entered the Top 25 but lost to USF at home as a 2 TD favorite 17-7 and BYU bounced back with a 42-23 whipping of Colorado St.

Turnovers can not only make a difference in a game but can make the difference between a winning and losing season. Read more…

In today’s blog, I will finish releasing my Preseason All-Conference Teams with the All-SEC and All-SBC Teams.

In the SEC, Defending National Champion Alabama leads the way with six 1st Team selections led by last year’s Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram who rushed for 1,658 yds (6.1) with 17 TD’s. Read more…

In my 2009 College Preview Magazine on pgs 324 and 327 I included my computer’s projected stats in 2009 for all 120 FBS teams. There were several different categories including rush offense/defense, pass offense/defense, offensive pts and defensive pts.

On the right hand side of the page I listed the teams that my computer projected to be most improved in ’09 compared to ’08 season in 6 different categories. I had them ranked in order from Most Improved all the way down to the Least Improved and included the top 15 in each category along with the bottom 5.

In today’s blog I have included my projections of the teams I thought would be most improved in rush offense heading into the 2009 season and how they finished in the final NCAA rankings.

In the coming days I will feature a different category in each blog and I think you will be happy with the results of the accuracy of my projections.

Read more…

Each day during bowl season in my daily blog, I will give you my forecasts on the bowl games taking place that day. My forecasts will include a detailed write-up with my computer’s projected box score including rushing and passing yards, points and turnovers along with a detailed write-up on each game.

Make sure you check out the Bowl Matchup section at PhilSteele.com where you’ll find all the latest and greatest information on the remaining bowl games. At the bottom of each individual bowl matchup page, there is a checklist that breakdowns on who has the advantage position by position, coaching, intangibles, and crowd advantage. You’ll also find game-by-game stats for each team, recaps of the 2009 season with box scores and each team’s stats.

Read more…