A couple days ago I started releasing my Preseason All Conference teams and today I will finish with the All-Big 10 and All-SEC teams.

9 of the 12 Big Ten teams have at least one 1st-Team selection on my Preseason All-Big 10 Team. 2x defending champ Wisconsin leads the way with seven 1st-team selections while Michigan St, Nebraska and Ohio St each have four 1st-Team players. The Spartans actually lead the way with an overall 16 players followed by Ohio St who has 15.

11 of the 14 teams in the SEC are represented with at least one 1st-Team selection. It should come as no surprise that Alabama and LSU lead the way with six players each while Arkansas, Auburn and Georgia each have three 1st-Team selections. LSU overall has the most players with 17 selections while Bama has 12 followed by Florida and Georgia who have 11.

Please check PhilSteele.com everyday to get my Top 40 Countdown which continued today with #24 Virginia Tech and #23 South Carolina. Every day now thru June 12th, I will post both magazine pages on each team that day and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your favorite team. Remember I will make those magazine pages available for only 24 hours for you to download.

One of the more popular sections of the regional magazines was the Best Case/Worst Case Scenarios where I take a look at the 2010 season and what teams records could have been in the Best Case and the Worst Case scenarios. Sometimes teams with solid winning records caught some breaks and were actually just a few plays away from a losing record. Some teams with losing records may have been just a handful of plays away from a winning record. Listed below are the SEC teams. The Best Case scenario record shows them winning all the games they lost by a TD or less. The Worst Case scenario shows what their record would have been if they had lost all the games they won by a TD or less.

Best Case/Worst Case Scenarios: SEC

Alabama 2010 Best Case 12-1 Close Losses (2)

LSU – It was only 7-3 at HT but the offenses got rolling in the 2H. Bama led 14-10 into the 4Q but trailed 24-21 with 3:23 left after a TD pass to Julio Jones. LSU on 3&13 from its own 20 opted to pass the ball and got a 47 yd pass to the Bama33 and they punted with just :18 left.

AUBURN – Alabama led 21-0 and fumbled at the Auburn19 before Auburn even got their first FD. Bama had a 1st & gl at the 3 but settled for a 24 yd FG and then Auburn got a 36 yd TD pass to Blake with 5:08 left in the half to get back in it at 24-7. Bama went 65/9pl but fumbled at the Auburn12. At half Bama had a 379-87 yd edge but failed to put Auburn away. Auburn took their first lead on a TD with 11:55 left. Bama punted with 5:18 left from the Auburn40. McElroy suffered a concussion and was out. Auburn converted on 4&inches with a 3 yd run by Newton when it looked like they were just trying to draw Bama offsides. They punted with :51 left. McCarron threw four incompletions on the final 4 plays.

Alabama 2010 Worst Case 9-4 Close Wins (1) Read more…

Today I have added some videos on the PhilSteele.com site. They are from an interview I did with Bruce Drennan on Sports Time Ohio where I did a conference-by-conference preview of the 2010 season. Below is my preview for the SEC. My other conference previews can be found by clicking here.

Phil Breakdowns the SEC

The last couple of years, I have I put up a poll for everyone to pick who would win each conference game during the year. I found these results fascinating prior to the year. When you vote in the poll, it tabulates the current % of votes for each team in each individual game. Here are the results of the fan poll from 2009.

When initially reviewing the results I was quite impressed with the accuracy as you the fans did quite well in numerous conferences. In fact, when I calculated the results (similar to what stassen.com does for all the major preseason college football magazines) you guys finished #1!!!! Check out my June 10 Blog for more details.

Here are the current conference standings for the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC, Pac-10, Big East and MWC with the percentages of each game factored in according to your votes. Read more…

Today I conclude my series of conference teams of the decade with a look at how each individual conference fared in the past decade in bowl games. To come up with a ranking system I included their overall bowl record, records against BCS conf teams, non-BCS conf teams, records against ranked opponents, the ranked teams’ records, and most importantly their BCS bowl record.

Here are the overall records for each conference and how I would rank each conference’s performance in the past 10 years in bowl games. Keep in mind this not my overall ranking on which conference is the toughest in the country but just one factor that goes into my ranking along with non-conf record, record against BCS foes, number of players drafted and number of top 10 finishes just to name a few. 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…

When it comes to college football, I am a traditionalist.  The one thing I love about college football is of all the sports, college or pro, the regular season in college football is the one that means the most. I also love the rivalries and the tradition of the bowls. While I have been calling for a system that pits the #1 vs #4 and #2 vs #3 teams in the Jan 1 bowls for nearly a decade, I am vehemently against an 8 or 16 team playoff which would destroy the bowls and make the regular season meaningless.

In 1995 I was actually sad to see the SWC fold as I really enjoyed the great tradition and history of that conference.

From the recent news of Nebraska joining the Big Ten and Colorado heading to the Pac-10, it looks like college football re-alignment and expansion is going forward and I think it will move quickly. However, unlike some of the past radical changes to college football, I actually look forward to seeing which programs end up where and I salivate at the possibility of there being multiple super conferences. 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…

Today’s blog includes all of my Magazine Covers with the exception of the National Cover.

Making a magazine cover has always been a big deal for college players all the way back to the old Street & Smith days which featured the top players without their face masks. Every year I have 10 different covers that I ship out to different parts of the United States so you can pick up a mag with your favorite player in that region on it.

While most magazines break down their covers by conference, I feel my covers separate themselves as I produce special Florida, Texas and Alabama/Auburn covers. Also I am the only magazine that has a Armed Forces cover which this year features all the quarterbacks.

Some highlights on covers this year are two non-BCS players making the desired spot: Boise St’s QB Kellen Moore is featured on the Pac-10 cover while TCU’s QB Andy Dalton makes the Texas cover. Also Georgia WR AJ Green, West Virginia RB Noel Devine and Florida St QB Christian Ponder made a cover for the second year in a row. Check out all the covers below and download the PDF version if you would like a print out.

Read more…

In Monday’s Blog I gave you the teams with the best odds to win the 2010 national championship courtesy of The Hilton in Las Vegas. In today’s blog is the current list for Returning Starters for each team in 2010 broken down by offense, defense and special teams. The * on the offense number denotes that the starting QB is returning. Below the alphabetical list I broke down teams with the most/least returning starters followed by a conference by conference breakdown.

Please make sure to check out our team schedules for next year. On the left side of the home page under 2010 click onSchedules/13 Year Logs and go to your favorite conference to get schedules for all your teams for 2010. Click on any game to get all the games played between the two teams in the last 13 years with complete statistics including first downs, rushing, passing, sacks, TO’s and much more.

Because we want all the information to be complete and accurate as possible, if you see any games we have missed for next seasons’ schedules or if there have been any recent changes to your favorite teams 2010 schedule please email Brandon@philsteele.com and we’ll get it corrected.

Also don’t forget to check out our Spring Central section to get 2010 schedules, coaching changes, who’s back/who’s not and all the NFL Draft early entrants.

I will be back later this week with all the Senior Bowl/Pro Bowl coverage you need to prepare you for this weekend’s games. On Monday I will expand on the Hilton’s odds to win the 2010 BCS National Championship and give you a breakdown of each of the 50 teams including key starters back/lost.

Read more…