From 2005-’08 I published an article titled Coaching Changes in my College Football Preview magazine. Each year I try to make the magazine a little bit bigger and a little bit better but we’re capped out at 328 pages so Coaching Changes does not appear in my 2010 magazine. We have had a lot of requests for this article and since the website has an unlimited amount of room, PhilSteele.com is a great vehicle to continue publishing this article and I will do so each year. Read more…
Categories: Offseason Notes Tags: 2010, Akron, blog, Bobby Hauck, Brian Kelly, Buffalo, Butch Jones, Central Michigan, Charlie Strong, Cincinnati, Coaching Changes, college football, Dan Enos, Derek Dooley, Doc Holliday, East Carolina, Florida St, Jeff Quinn, Jimbo Fisher, Joker Phillips, Kansas, Kentucky, Lane Kiffin, Larry Porter, Louisiana Tech, Louisville, Marshall, Memphis, Mike London, Mike MacIntyre, Notre Dame, phil steele, Rob Ianello, Robbie Caldwell, Ruffin McNeill, San Jose St, Skip Holtz, Sonny Dykes, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Todd Berry, Tommy Tuberville, Turner Gill, ULM, UNLV, USC, USF, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Willie Taggart, WKU
The magazine is printed as late as possible and we send it off to the press in the middle of May. 95% of what is written is still completely accurate come August. Every year though there are some players who have left the program for one reason or another during the summer and we will have those players updated in the 2010 “Out for the Year” section, which we have just posted on the site. (see below)
What I do in my personal magazine is circle the players that are lost and that way you can tell at a glance which teams suffer the most attrition and those that do not lose anybody. Prior to the season, the players who were lost during the summer and in fall practice are circled in red while the players lost during the season to injury or suspension are circled in blue. Read more…
First, I hope you and your families are having a very happy and safe 4th of July weekend!
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…
In the June 19-20 blog I discussed my power ratings system, which lets me analyze at what level each team played during an individual game. This “game grade” takes into account the yards rushing, yards passing, points scored, rushing yards allowed, passing yards allowed and points allowed and factors them in against the opponent played and even factors in the site the game was played at.
One of the main factors in this “game grade” deals with total ypg differential (total off-total def). Naturally, a team that outgains their opponents by a large margin over the course of the season will receive a higher game grade average. While this is just one factor that goes into my overall game grade it got me wondering what were some of the best seasons in the last decade for teams outgaining their opponents.
Here are the best 50 seasons in the last decade (’00-’09) for outgaining opponents on the season. Read more…
Categories: Offseason Notes Tags: college football, Duke, florida, Florida St, Game Grade, Outgained, phil steele, Temple, Total Yards, USC, Washington St, Yards
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…
Categories: News & Notes Tags: acc, big 12, big ten, Boise St, Clemson, college football, Colorado, Expansion, florida, Florida St, Georgia Tech, Kansas, Miami Fl, Missouri, mountain west, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, pac 10, phil steele, Pittsburgh, Probation, rutgers, Sanctions, SEC, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, USC, Virginia Tech
THE POLLS ARE OPEN!!!
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!!!! 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.
Read more…
Categories: Phil Steele News Tags: All Conference Teams, Arizona, Arizona St, Armando Allen, army, California, college football, Darrin Walls, independent, Jacquizz Rodgers, Jake Locker, James Rodgers, Navy, Notre Dame, Oregon, Oregon St, pac 10, phil steele, Stanford, UCLA, USC, Washington, Washington St, Wyatt Middleton
Spring practice is nearly wrapped up for all the teams so make sure to check out our Spring Central Section to get the latest details surrounding your favorite team. Coming soon is our interesting tidbit section, which will detail several different factors like the Top Winningest Active Coaches, Top Home/Away and top individual performers over the last 5 years.
The NFL draft is less than a week and my NFL Draft Guide is complete with more than a 100 pages filled with the latest and greatest information on this year’s draft! It includes position by position rankings, combine invites, pro day workouts and an updated 2-round Mock Draft! While my NFL Draft Guide would probably sell for $6.95 on the newsstands you candownload the entire guide for free at PhilSteele.com!
Josh Buchanan who runs JBScouting.com does a great job following FCS football and he contributes significantly to my FCS preview. Josh also has scouted for the Texas vs. Nation Game and East Coast Bowl the last few years and has interned with the Carolina Panthers. He has just released finished his small school draft guide with nearly 200 pages of jampacked infomation exclusively on this year’s small school top players! You can purchase his guide by clicking here.
In the magazine on each team we include a chart of various offensive/defensive stats from the last 7 years. Included in this chart is the number of returning starters, offensive/defensive ppg, total turnovers, and sack totals.
Today’s blog will take a closer look at defensive ppg for all 120 teams over the last 5 years. Here are the…. Read more…
