I have been publishing a Most Improved Teams list since 1999 and the list hit a home run that very first year. I pegged Hawaii as my #1 Most Improved Team and they were coming off an 0-12 record in 1998. The then “Rainbow Warriors” simply set an NCAA record for largest improvement ever by going to 9-4 in 1999!

This year there are 16 teams on my Most Improved List and these are all teams that had losing records last year but ones I believe will be bowl eligible this year. Last season I had 19 teams on the list and 13 of them were bowl eligible at the end of the year with 17 of them improving their record! Do you think it is easy picking teams with losing records that will have a winning record the next year?

I went back to 1992 and there have been 969 teams that had a losing season. Of those 969 teams only 279 had a winning record the next year which is 28.8%. That means if a team is coming off a losing season there is over a 70% chance that they will have another losing record the next year!

Over the last nine years 109 of the teams that have made my Most Improved List have been bowl eligible the next year. In that same nine-year span there have been 475 teams with a losing record and of those 475 only 129 have gone onto a winning record (above .500) the next season (27.1%). Of those 129 teams, 79 of them were on my Most Improve List. Now you do the math here but as you can see very few teams go from a losing record to a bowl the next year if they are not on my Most Improved list.

This blog is about the one that got away. Read more…

A lot of people ask me if I have a favorite team. I was born and raised and still live in Cleveland, Ohio. I was a fan of many teams as a child but now that I put out a National magazine, I cannot afford to be a fan of any team. I have to pick the teams where I think they will finish each year. I was doing a radio show last week and I was asked if I have a favorite team or teams. My response was a strong YES! The interviewer was surprised by that answer and also eager to hear which team I would pick. My answer was my favorite team each year is the team I pick #1 in the magazine and my favorite teams are the ones I have picked higher than all the other major magazines out there. I then said that each year I establish a list of my favorite teams for that year. I then give this list to my wife. I wear a shirt and tie to work every day during the week and my tie is always a college team. I wear polo shirts during the weekend and when not at work and they are always different college teams. The list I give my wife is the ones to buy that I will be wearing for the upcoming year as these are the teams I will be the biggest fan of for the upcoming season. I was then asked “What teams will your wife be buying ties and shirts of this year? That was a great question and I thought I would answer it in a blog. Read more…

My 2010 College Football Preview Magazine has so much information in it that it would take months to go thru it all. It is like 120 media guides rolled into one. 

Magazine is a loose term for it as the Preview is more like a book with over 100 pages more than any other college football magazine. Not only does it have more pages but the magazine has 2 to 3 times the amount of information on each page! That gives my magazine 3 to 4 times the amount of information of any other magazine!

I mention all of this because there are even parts of the magazine that I myself forget about during the year. Every spring once I have finished my conference write ups, Top 40, All-American and All-Conference Teams I wrap up the “other” pages in the magazine. One of those pages that I find a lot of fun is the projected stats which is on page 324 and 327. Read more…

For more than 7 years I have published an “Experience Chart” in my National College Football Preview. The old version of this chart just took into account the overall experience from the 2 deep for each squad. Last year I revised the Experience Chart and created a New and Improved version. The new chart uses 20% of the experience grade from the old chart, 20% from the % of lettermen returning, 20% from the % of tackles returning, 20% from the % of yards returning and 20% from the career starts of the offensive line.

The most experienced teams when using the old chart were usually the service academies which play a lot of seniors and juniors. Using the old method (which is listed below) the top 5 most experienced teams in terms of upperclassmen in the two deep are: 1. Hawaii 2. Navy 2. Army 4. UAB and 5. Air Force. Iowa St ranks the highest among BCS teams coming in at #10. Read more…

The TRUCK IS HERE! That signals the “official” start of the College Football season when you have your Phil Steele College Football Preview in your hands.

To all of you who purchased the magazine over the winter and spring, we dropped your magazines in the envelopes today and they were the first ones out the door this morning! Read more…

CUSA has been making huge strides the past couple of years. After going 3-8 in bowls in ’06-’07, they have gone 6-6 the last 2 years. In ’08 both East Carolina and Tulsa were considered possible BCS bowl busters and last year Houston climbed all the way to #12 after big wins against Oklahoma St and Texas Tech.

Until last year there had been a different CUSA league champ for SEVEN straight years with TCU in ’02, SMiss in ’03, L’Ville in ’04, Tulsa in ’05, UCF in ’07 and East Carolina in ’08. The Pirates ended that streak in ‘09 as they repeated with a 38-32 win over Houston in the title game. This year East Carolina loses HC Holtz who left for South Florida and welcome new coach Ruffin McNeil who served as the DC at Texas Tech for the last 3 seasons and was the interim HC in the Red Raiders’ bowl win over Michigan St last year. Can the Pirates 3-peat or will Houston, UTEP or SMU start another streak of different conference champs?

2010 figures to be an exciting year for the conference with record setting players like Houston’s Case Keenum and UTEP’s Donald Buckram back. SMU fresh off their 1st bowl win in 25 years returns QB Kyle Padron and looks to make it to a bowl for the 2nd straight year. Southern Miss is just 1 of 4 teams to have 16 straight winning seasons (Florida, Florida St and Va Tech) and returns their top 2 QBs in Austin Davis and Martevious Young. 

CUSA announced their 2010 football schedules yesterday. Here is a quick breakdown of the schedules for each team… Read more…

Navy QB Dobbs has a small crack in his kneecap from a prior inj in HS that will have to be repaired, but he is hoping to play thru the injury and have it fixed after the season….

Michigan’s Rich Brooks isn’t hiding his quarterback decision this week.  He’s said true frosh Morgan Newton will start….

S Carolina is looking to avenge last year’s loss to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is coming off a 34-10 loss to Georgia and South Carolina’s 20-6 loss at Alabama….

Read more…