By Phil Steele

GAMES NOTES:

Troy had a 23-10 FD edge and 472-328 yd edge but Middle Tenn at home came away with a fortunate victory and Troy clinched a losing season. Troy was int’d on their 2nd poss and ret’d 22 yds to their 25 and MT got a 37 yd FG on a 20 yd drive. Troy went 60/9pl but fmbl’d at the 2 and on the next play, Parker got a 98 yd td run for MT, 10-0. Troy went 80/11pl for a td. Troy fmbl’d at the MT6 after a 42/5pl drive. MT got a 66 yd pass to Parker to the 28 but had a 43 yd FG blk’d. Troy had a punt blk’d 4pl later and MT got a 26 yd FG, 13-7 (6:26 2Q). At half MT had a 251-223 yd edge. Troy opened the 3Q with a 78/10pl drive and a 4 yd td pass put them up 14-13. 5 punts. Troy went 45/7pl but on FD from the MT33 fmbl’d and it was ret’d 59 yds to the 8. MT got a 21 yd FG on a 4 yd drive to lead 16-14. MT fmbl’d at the Troy44 on its next drive and Troy went 56/8pl for a td with 9:06 left for a 21-16 lead. MT was int’d on a deep pass and ret’d 43 yds to their 47. Troy got 1 FD and was int’ and ret’d 77 yds for a td with 5:48 left, the 2 pt conversion made it 24-21. Troy got 2 FD and on 4&4 fired incomplete at the MT27 with 2:46 left and MT got 1 FD and ran the clock. Read more…

By Phil Steele

GAMES NOTES:

Ball St solidified its bowl standing and Ohio’s banged up team kept sliding. The Bobcats missed as many as 10 players due to injury but did only trail 21-17 at the half. Ball St lost their starting QB Keith Wenning who hit 16-20-172. Veteran Kelly Page came in and ran 7 yards for a td on his only play of the 1H and OU did get to the BSU12 with :12 left in the half but was sacked on the final play and did not score. OU got a 58 yd td run by Blankenship on the first drive of the 2H to take a 24-21 lead but Ball got a 68 yd Edwards run keying a 71/2pl drive for a td and OU missed a 27 yd FG. After 2 punts, BSU went 59/10pl for a 38 yd FG and OU went on an 11pl drive for a 34 yd FG, 31-27. Ball, after a 46 yard KR and a 15 yd penalty on a personal foul, drove 38/1pl for a td then after a punt went 65/6pl for a td and after OU went 3&out again, went 77/8pl for a td and turned it into a 52-27 rout with 2:18 left. Page hit just 5-7-41 rushing 4x’s for 34 yards.

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#23 Toledo takes on Ball St today. For the Top 25 Forecast and the projections you would normally see on Friday – head on over to PhilSteele.com today!

INTERESTING NOTE:
Nine of the 15 teams that made my Most Improved List featured in this year’s magazine have already clinched bowl bids and there is still a month left!!

GAMES NOTES:

Jordan Lynch only accounted for 3 td’s for Northern Illinois despite the final being 63-0 vs overmatched Massachusetts. NI played 2 backup QB’s leaving Lynch in for just the first series of the 3Q and he left with them up 42-0. UMass went for it on 4th down 4 times in the 1H on 4&2 at the NI47, 4&9 at the NI50, 4&2 at the NI27 and 4&8 at the NI7 and all 4 times, failed. They fumbled on their first two 3Q poss and were SOD on 4&6 at the NI46.

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GAME NOTES

Stanford went on the road for the first time and led 13-3 late 3Q but on a key play of the game, Washington on 4&1 got a 61 yd Sankey td run to get back in it. They later got a 35 yd td pass with 4:54 left and SU’s last gasp was a 4&4 incomplete pass with 1:46 left. Josh Nunes hit 18-37-170. It was UW’s first win over a top 10 team since 2009 and the student section poured on to the turf of CenturyLink Field at the end and actually gave them more of a home field edge than I thought they would playing away from their home stadium this year. UW finished with a 313-235 yd edge and 13-10 FD edge.

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Making my Most Improved List has generally been a blessing for teams, as they usually make big turnarounds. In 1999, the #1 most improved team in my Preseason Rankings was Hawaii and they had the NCAA’s largest turnaround on record, going from a winless season in 1998 (0-12) to 9-4 and a bowl victory one year later!!!

The year 2000 was a VERY successful season as well for my Most Improved Teams. Of the top 14 Most Improved Teams that year, TEN went from a losing season to being bowl eligible!!!! South Carolina was my #6 Most Improved Team (MIT) and they went from 0-11 in 1999 to beating Ohio St in a Jan 1 bowl to finish 8-4.

In 2001 and 2002, nine of the 20 teams on my Most Improved List list each year went from having a non-winning season to making a bowl. Colorado went from 3-8 to just missing out on the National Title game in ’01. In 2003, 8 of the top 20 teams went from a .500 or losing seasons to being bowl eligible. Memphis, my #8 Most Improved Team. The Tigers went from 3-9 to a super 9-4!!!!!

There was a total of TEN teams that did not have winning records in ’03 who improved to a winning record in ’04. NINE (90%) of them were on my list! My #1 Most Improved Team, Texas A&M, went from 4-8 to the Cotton Bowl.

In 2005, the top 16 MIT’s on my list in ’05 had a comb record of 66-111 (37%) in ’04 and improved to 102-84 (55%) in ’05. Penn State went from 4-7 to #3 AP and nearly played in the National Title game. Oregon went from 5-6 to #6 after the regular season, finishing at 10-2!!

2006 was another great year for this list. My #1 Most Improved Team was Arkansas which went from 4-7 to SEC West Champs and rose as high as #5 AP!!

2007 was another terrific year! The 22 teams on my list had a comb record of 92-177 (34.2%) in ’06 but were 145-134 (52%) in ’07.

In 2008 twelve of my top 13 Most Improved Teams went from non-winning seasons to bowl eligibility or 92%!!! Those 13 went from a combined 50-95 (34.5%) in ’07 to a 94-62 (60.3%) record in ’08!!!

2009 was another successful season with 22 teams making my list and of the 22, 12 went from a losing record to bowl eligibility. Ohio won the MAC East after going 4-8 in ’08 and SMU went from 1-11 to 8-5!!!

In 2010 my #1 Most improved team Tulsa went from 5-7 to 10-3 and #24 AP! The 19 teams that made the list had a combined record of 82-149 35.5% in ’09 and improved to a combined 132-109 54.8%!!

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The last two days I have gone over how all 120 teams have fared at home this decade and how they have fared on the road. Here are the results for all 120 teams combined.

120 FBS Home team records: 4593-2651 (63.4%)

120 FBS Away team records: 2602-3957 (39.7%)

That means that on the average teams in the FBS (1A) have a home winning % that is 23.7% greater than their away winning percentage. Now you guys know me by now. I cant leave things go at just that without having a few more questions answered. I wonder which teams play at a much higher level at home than they do on the road. This would be answered by taking the home winning % and subtracting the road %. Also which teams are true road warriors almost playing as well on the road as they do at home? Here are the results for all 120 teams for their home and away records this decades. I ranked them in order of biggest disparity between home and away % to the lowest. Read more…

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…

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…

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.

My forecasts have gone 10-2 (83.3%) in the last 12 with 4 outright upsets including yesterdays Iowa upset of Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl!!

Also check out the bowl matchup section to get the latest and greatest information on the 4 upcoming bowl games including, game by game stats, 2009 recaps, and checklists for every position and intangible.

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