MEINEKE CAR CARE BOWL Saturday, December 31st @ 12:00 p.m. Click on the bowl logo for MORE info!!!!

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Remember when Oklahoma won the National Title in 2000? Not a single OU starter lost a single start due to injury! My research has shown that teams that benefited from very few injuries, in this case 6 or less, usually have a weaker season the next year.

The bottom line is, teams that have suffered a lot of injuries the previous year will generally have a better year the next season. A lot of backups were forced to play during the injury-riddled year, gaining valuable experience and the team figures to not be so injury-prone the next year.

In a study over the last 7 years, my research shows that if a team had 32 or more starts lost to injury the prior season, they improved or had the same record the next year on 56 out of 67 occasions for an 83.5% success rate. How about teams that are really banged up? Well from 2001-2005 12 teams went through seasons of having 40 or more combined starts lost and ALL 12 had the same or better record the next season. It surprises me that 17 teams met that criteria in 2006-’07 but only 7 had a stronger record the next year and 9 had a weaker record.

In 2008, Utah was at the top of the chart with 51 starts lost to injury and they went from 9-4 to 13-0 and #2 in the country! Last year was another solid year as 9 teams had 35 or more starts lost to injury in ‘09 and 8 of the 9 improved or had the same record (88%!). Here are the teams that suffered 32 or more starts lost to injury last year: Read more…

Today’s Blog is an in-depth look at who plays the toughest schedule this year and also some of the flaws in the other methods in determining schedule strength.

At the beginning of the season, the NCAA usually releases a rating of each team’s schedule based on their opponents’ win/loss record from the previous season, This is a good method but it does have its obvious flaws.

The first flaw is basing the ratings on opponents records from the previous season. Let’s look at a couple of examples. At the start of 2007 I had Illinois rated as one of the top teams in the Big Ten and they went on to knock off #1 Ohio St and play in the ROSE Bowl. My ratings had them as an above avg opponent at the start of the year and they finished the regular season #13 (AP). Using 2006’s record as the criteria for determining the strength of an opponent’s schedule, however, you would count them as a 2-10 team! In 2008, I had teams like Ole Miss and Minnesota on my Most Improved Teams List meaning I thought they were bowl caliber but using the previous year’s record you would have counted them as 3-9 and 1-11 teams (both made bowls, Ole Miss finished #14). On the flip side of the coin, Notre Dame was in an obvious rebuilding year in ’07 yet was still counted as a 10-3 team if you based strength of schedule on 2006’s record and they were far from a January bowl team in 2007 at just 3-9!

The second flaw is basing it on pure overall records. If a team plays an FCS (IAA) school that was 11-1 in 2007, that counts as a MUCH tougher game in the NCAA ratings than facing a team like Alabama who was 7-6 in ‘07 but #1 at the end of ‘08 regular season! My ratings had Bama ranked as a much tougher team than any FCS foe. To give you an example from 2002, my ratings foresaw that teams playing Kansas St were facing a Top 10 team based on my preseason ratings. The NCAA strength of schedule ranking rated a game against Kansas St as just a game vs a 6-6 opp (2001 record). Kanas St finished #7 AP for 2002 and walloped their opp’s by an avg of 45-12, not exactly numbers from a typical middle-of-the-road opponent.

On the flip side let’s look at 2009’s Ball St team. They were in an obvious rebuilding year and my power ratings had them only winning 2 or 3 games. My methods gave teams credit for a weak foe when facing Ball St but basing it on the previous year’s record, teams were given credit for playing a 12-2 team which is what they finished in 2008! That is a MAJOR flaw! 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…

In Today’s blog I will start releasing my Preseason All Conference teams with the PAC-10 and Independent teams.

The Pac-10 is very balanced this year as nine of the ten teams (Washington St) have a player on my 1st Team. Washington leads the way with five players led by QB Jake Locker. USC and Arizona both have four players on my 1st Team while Oregon, Oregon St, UCLA and Stanford each have 3 players.

Oregon St RB Jacquizz Rodgers and WR James Rodgers both appear on my preseason 1st Team for the 2nd year in a row as well as USC OC Kristofer O’Dowd, California LB Mike Mohamed, UCLA K Kai Forbath and California P Bryan Anger.

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Covering college football as I do takes 52 weeks a year as it is and while I personally do not scout the high school games and rate each player I do compile my rankings based on the many different recruiting services across the country that follow and scout HS football year round. I not only like to use all of the biggest and best services, but I also use regional reports as well. The colleges themselves use many of these services to get the latest information on recruits.

When we receive a recruiting magazine, we translate each player’s ranking into a points system from 1-100 and then log each and every player into the computer and give them a point total from each source. Naturally, the more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated by each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by position and by total points and then rank the players from most points to least.

In today’s blog I have included the top incoming freshman Kickers/Punters and the Top 75 Incoming Jucos for 2010. Each one of these players is ranked in the Top 500 prospects regardless of position and will appear in my preseason magazine. I have also posted the top individual classes for each position. Since we want the college preview to continue to be the most in-depth and accurate magazine out there, if you find any information that is wrong or if you are questioning a player’s ranking please contact brandon@philsteele.com. I will be back on Friday I with the top 75 overall classes and give you my conference by conference recruiting ratings. Read more…

Covering college football as I do takes 52 weeks a year as it is and while I personally do not scout the high school games and rate each player I do compile my rankings based on the many different recruiting services across the country that follow and scout HS football year round. I not only like to use all of the biggest and best services, but I also use regional reports as well. The colleges themselves use many of these services to get the latest information on recruits.

When we receive a recruiting magazine, we translate each player’s ranking into a points system from 1-100 and then log each and every player into the computer and give them a point total from each source. Naturally, the more they are mentioned and the higher they are rated by each publication, the more total points they accrue. After months of entering all of this information, I sort the list by poistion and by total points and then rank the players from most points to least.

In today’s blog I have included the top incoming freshman QBs and RBs for 2010. Each one of these players is ranked in the Top 500 prospects regardless of position and will appear in my preseason magazine. I have also posted the top individual classes for each position. Since we want the college preview to continue to be the most in-depth and accurate magazine out there, if you find any informataion that is wrong or if you are questioning a player’s ranking please contact brandon@philsteele.com. In Wednesday’s Blog I will post the top WR’s and TE’s with the top OL and DL coming on Friday.

Top Incoming Freshman QBs Read more…

National signing day was yesterday as the top rated high school players all over the country signed with their favorite school. It is one of the most important days of the year for each college team as usually the teams with the best recruiting classes year in and year out usually find themsevles in the Top 25.

Covering college football as I do takes 52 weeks a year as it is and while I personally do not scout the high school games and rate each player I do compile my rankings based on the many different recruiting services across the country that follow and scout HS football year round. I not only like to use all of the biggest and best services, but I also use regional reports as well. The colleges themselves use many of these services to get the latest information on recruits.

While my final recruiting rankings will not be completed for another month, several recruiting sources that I use have released their Top 10 ratings for 2010. 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.

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

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