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FCS Semi-Final Forecasts

Phil Steele — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 17:47:56 +0000

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FCS PLAYOFFS SEMI-FINALS:
VILLANOVA at
#5 EASTERN WASHINGTON

Rushing

Passing

Points

TO’s

VILLANOVA

193

220

EASTERN WASHINGTON

112

275

This is the first meeting between these two teams. Villanova is the defending FCS Champion and since the return of their all-purp star Matt Szczur have again been acting like it. Szczur had 3 rushing, 1 passing & 1 receiving TD vs Appalachian St. The Wildcats led #1 seed App St 28-10 at half and never led by less then 11 but were outgained 461-449. Eastern Washington led North Dakota St 14-0 in the 1Q and RB Taiwan Jones had 203 of his career high 230 yds in the 1H but suffered a fracture in his foot in the 2H. EW allowed a pick-6 in the 3Q that allowed NDSU to tie it at 24 and fell behind 31-24 in the 4Q. EW need a TD with :23 left to force OT. They scored a TD on their first play and recoverd a NDSU fumble in the EZ for the win. EW is 7-0 on their new Red turf this year. However they will be without RB Jones who is 2nd in the FCS with 1,742 (7.9, 14 TD) here and his 2 back-ups are true frosh Mario Brown (216, 3.5, 1 TD) and JR Darriell Beaumonte (216, 2.7, 2 TD). The Eagles are led by former SMU transfer QB Bo Levi Mitchell, who is avg 223 ypg (57.5%) with a 30-14 ratio. EW is only outgaining opp 402-387 on the season. Villanova in their last 3 games have defeated #1 Delaware, #3 Stephen F. Austin and #1 App St. QB Chris Whitney is avg 165 ypg (66%) with a 22-5 ratio and is the #2 rusher with 584 (3.7, 11 TD). They are led by RB’s Aaron Ball (776, 4.9, 5 TD) and Angelo Babbaro (486, 4.9, 5 TD). While WR Szczur has 332 (6.1, 3 TD) in just 7 games. They are holding opp to just 318 ypg. Without RB Jones the Eagles will need some red turf magic to win here and I’ll call for Villanova with playmaker Szczur to return to the Championship game.

PHIL’S FORECAST: VILLANOVA 35 EASTERN WASHINGTON 24

FCS PLAYOFFS SEMI-FINALS: GEORGIA SOUTHERN at #3 DELAWARE
	Rushing	Passing	Points	TO’s
GEORGIA SOUTHERN	211	80	18	2
DELAWARE	129	240	27	2
The series is tied 2-2 and 1-1 in playoff games, while the home team has won the last 2, incl their last meeting in ‘02, when Delaware won here 22-19. Georgia Southern won the last playoff meeting in the 2000 Semi-finals 27-18. GSU has won 6 straight games including 2 straight playoff games on the road. However, LW vs Wofford they were out FD’d 19-14 and outgained 343-246 but scored 2 TD’s in the 1Q off Wofford TO’s and led 17-0 in the 2Q before needing to hold on 23-20. Meanwhile Delaware’s, defense shutdown New Hampshire allowing them over 20 yds on just 3 of their 13 drives. UD had a 23-15 FD & 383-237 yd edge and had a 5:36 drive to the NH 12 to run down the clock before turning it over on downs with :06 left. GSU is led by former Georgia Tech transfer QB Jaybo Shaw who is avg just 84 ypg (52%) with a 5-4 ratio but is the #2 rusher with 504 (2.6, 16 TD). They have 6 players with 250+ yds rushled by RB Robert Brown with 955 (4.8, 6 TD) and as a team are avg 4.6 ypc. They are outgaining opp by a 349-285 ypg. The Blue Hens are led by former Penn St transfer QB Pat Devlin, who is avg 223 ypg (68%) with an outstanding 20-2 ratio along with 113 rush yds (1.7, 1 TD). UD has 3 players with 300+ rush yds led by RB Andrew Pierce with 1,327 (4.8, 13 TD). UD has outgained opp 407-275 ypg and are allowing just 99.8 ypg rushing (3.4) and 5 rush TD’s in 13 games. I will call for the Blue Hens to outscore the Eagles and return to the FCS Championship Game for the 2nd time in 4 years.
PHIL’S FORECAST: DELAWARE 24 GOERIGA SOUTHERN 20

FCS Regional Magazine

Phil Steele — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:07:30 +0000

When comparing the amount of coverage the FCS gets in preview magazines it pales in comparison to the FBS. This year, Lindy’s has 4 pages in their national magazine devoted to the FCS. Athlon devoted none and The Sporting News who merged with Street and Smiths in ’08 had 18 pages devoted to 1AA or FCS teams last year.

Last year we devoted 136 pages of FCS coverage in our ACC/Big East regional. We went to a half-page on each FCS school and this year we have expanded our coverage again. I am pleased to announce that we now have devoted a full page each on all of the 124 teams in the FCS and expanded our coverage to 175 pages strictly on the FCS! Every team has a full page with the last 6 years results, 2009 statistical leaders that are bold and un-bold showing which players are coming back, the last 6 years statistics, this year’s schedule and a complete position-by-position breakdown which we expanded this year (roughly 1000 to 1500 words on each team)!

The FCS coverage can be found in this year’s SEC/ACC/Big East regional magazine, which also has 4 pages on every SEC/ACC/Big East team and 328 pages overall (same as national FBS mag)! This regional is available on newsstands in the Southeast/Coastal/ Northeastern regions for just $8.95. Let’s face it you regularly pay more for a tip at a fancy restaurant but for just $8.95, you can become an expert on all the FCS teams! You can also purchase it through our offices for $13.70 (includes priority shipping) and we will ship them out to you within 24 hours unless ordered on the weekend. Call 1-866-918-7711 to get your copy today!

Here are a couple of team pages from this year’s magazine for you to look at to get an idea of our detailed FCS coverage.

Click here to download the PDF version.

Remember most FBS teams (85) are scheduling one FCS team a year now as there are 89 games this year involving FCS vs FBS teams! Arizona State, Virginia, Syracuse, Ball State & San Jose State each play two FCS teams in 2010 and there will be 15 FCS schools playing two games vs. FBS competition this year. Some are of the marquee matchups involve Florida taking on Appalachian St, North Carolina plays William & Mary and Temple takes on cross-town rival and defending FCS champ Villanova. If you want to become an expert and get a detailed breakdown on the FCS team your favorite school maybe playing this year there is no better way than purchasing our FCS regional mag!

Also if you are FCS fan and would like to see our FCS regional magazine in your school bookstore please email brandon@philsteele.com and give us the contact # for the bookstore and we will try to get the magazines available there for you to purchase. Also if you have any school contacts that would like to promote our magazine whether it be on Facebook or any other school affiliated site, please take the time to promote your school with a magazine that is second to none when it comes to FCS information.

Also this year’s NFL magazine is 256 pages, which is considerably thicker than most NFL magazines out there. In this magazine you get six pages on every NFL team packed with stats, position write-ups, past game results and so much more. Here on the blog today I thought I would put the six pages of the defending Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints. Click here to download the pdf version from this years magazine and this will show you all the information on each of the 32 teams that we produce. I will not go into great detail as to what is on the pages as you can see for yourself and I think you will agree that it is more information than any other NFL preview.

The Pro magazine should have hit newsstands across the country last week. However, with this being just the 2nd year I have put the magazine on the newsstands it will only have about half of the distribution that my College Magazine has. If you cannot find my Pro Football Preview anywhere near you, try ordering thru the PhilSteele.com store or call our offices at 1-866-918-7711. The cost is just $12.70 (includes priority shipping) and we will ship it out of our offices within 24 hours unless ordered on the weekend and in that case it will get shipped 1st thing on Monday.

Only 23 Days Until the First College Football Game!!!

Week 15 Forecasts

Phil Steele — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:33:11 +0000

Every week this season I posted my forecasts of all the games involving Top 25 teams As usual, it includes my computer’s projected box score for each game.

The Regular season finished up with the Top 25 Forecasts going 212-62 77.4% picking the winners of each game.That record may sound great, but do keep in mind most games have involved teams that were big favorites so the majority of people will have a solid record on these games as well. I also listed some Upset Specials, which pulled the upset 17 out of 36 times this season. Combined the regular season record is 229- 81 73.9%!!

This week there are no games involving Top 25 teams so similar to the last two weeks, I will include my forecasts for the FCS/Division IAA Playoffs as well as the Army/Navy game.

ARMY VS NAVY

Team	Rushing	Passing	Points	TO’s	ST’s
ARMY	171	55	7	1.8	–
NAVY	299	50	28	1.5	4

Philadelphia. The 110th meeting between these rivals. Navy leads the series 53-49-7 and have won a series record 7 straight by a combined 274-71. Navy looks to win the Commander-In-Chief’s Trophy for a record 7th straight time as they have won a record 14 straight service academy games. Those number include a 16-13 OT win over an Air Force team which beat Army 35-7 this year. While Navy already has their bid to the Texas Bowl on Dec 31st, Army is playing for their first bowl bid since 1996 and with a win here will play in the EagleBank Bowl on Dec 29th. Navy has the offensive (#91-119) and defensive (#70-85) edges but is allowing 4.2 yards per carry rushing while Army is allowing 3.9. Navy had a bye week after a long trip to Hawaii against another team that needed to win to keep their bowl hopes alive. Navy was outgained 428-336 and was tied 17-17 at the half but they allowed Hawaii a 3^rd quarter TD, which was the only 2^nd half scoring. Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs, who is playing with a knee injury that will require surgery after the season, is averaging 76.4 yards per game (52.4%) with a 4-2 ratio and leads Navy with 924 yards (3.7 ypc) rushing and an NCAA QB record tying 23 rush TD. Fullback Vince Murray is the #2 rusher with 884 yards (5.6 ypc) and slot back Marcus Curry is #3 with 442 yards (6.9 ypc). The Hawaii game was the first time since the SMU game on Oct 17th that all 3 of Navy’s top rushers all played. Army has had 3 weeks to prepare for Navy after their come-from-behind win over North Texas scoring a TD with 1:43 left to win 17-13, despite being outgained 447-287. Army’s true freshman quarterback Trent Steelman is averaging 50.9 yards per game (52.2%) with a 3-1 ratio and leads with 690 rush yards (3.6 ypc). The #2 rusher is slot back Patrick Mealy with 625 yards (6.4 ypc) and the #3 is fullback Kingsley Ehie with 445 yards (4.2 ypc). Army’s 7 game drought was under 4 different head coaches and head coach Rich Ellerson will try to avoid becoming the 5th.

PHIL’S FORECAST: † Navy 23 Army 13

FCS/Div IAA Football Championship – Semifinals

APPALACHIAN ST VS #1 MONTANA

Team	Yards Rush	Yards Pass	Points	TO’s	Spec Tms
Appalachian St	191	230	30	2.9	–
Montana (#1)	144	260	35	2.8	–

These teams have met just once, in the 2000 semifinals, when Montana won 19-16 at home. Appalachian St’s reward for beating #4 seed and reigning Champ Richmond is a 2250+ mile trip to Montana. Appalachian St had a 444-347 yard edge but trailed 24-14 in the 4^th quarter. ASU scored 2 unanswered TD’s for a 28-24 lead and forced a Richmond punt, but ASU’s punt returner had the ball literally taken out of his hands and returned for a TD with 3:26 left to put Richmond back into the lead 31-28. Then senior quarterback Armanti Edwards did what he has done for 4 years, drive 70 yards for the game-winning TD with :10 left. Montana, after an amazing 1st round win over South Dakota St in which they came back from 27 points down with 41 unanswered had an easy 51-0 win over Stephen F. Austin. They had 22-12 first down and 474-280 yard edges but the main reason for the blowout was a 10-1 turnover edge including one as Stephen F. Austin’s wide receiver fumbled at the Montana 2 yard line when he was about to score. Montana is trying to make their 2nd straight championship game and 7th overall. While Appalachian St is trying make their 4th overall, all in the last 5 years. ASU’s win at Richmond was their 1st road playoff win since 2000 but Montana has won 16 straight at home. However, their last loss here was in the 2007 playoffs to Wofford. Look for Edwards to pull it out one more time.

PHIL’S FORECAST: Appalachian St 35 MONTANA 34

WILLIAM & MARY VS #2 VILLANOVA

Team	Yards Rush	Yards Pass	Points	TO’s	Spec Tms
William & Mary	76	225	15	1.6	–
Villanova (#2)	179	125	18	1.5	–

William & Mary leads the series 14-12-1 but has lost the last 5 including a 28-17 loss this year despite 27-15 first down and 472-283 yard edges (1 TD in 5 redzone trips). William & Mary is trying to become the 3rd straight team that finished #3 in the CAA South to make the championship game. If they do it will be because of a defense that has allowed just 3 points in their 2 playoff games. William & Mary gave head coachJimmye Laycock his 200th win in its 1st playoff road win ever, handing #3 seed Southern Illinois their only FCS loss this year. William & Mary was outgained 102-2 in the 1^st quarter and trailed 3-0 but scored 24 unanswered and ended with 22-11 first down & 373-187 yard edges. They held Southern Illinois’s running back Karim, who came in averaging 139 yards per game rushing to just 27 yards. Villanova repaid New Hampshire for an earlier loss this year with a 46-7 win in the snow. They got a fumble return TD on New Hampshire’s 1st play from scrimmage and never looked back as they had a 387-84 yard edge including 343-(-66) rush edge. They say defense wins championships and I will call for William & Mary to be the 2nd CAA team to repay an earlier loss.