Today’s blog will continue with my series of analyzing the most/least improved units over the last 20 years. Each day this week I will have a new offensive or defensive statistical category to examine and today I will breakdown offensive ppg.

There are many factors that contribute to a significant change in offensive ppg. First, a team may see a significant improvement if they return a bunch of experienced starters from a team that was relatively inexperienced the year before. Naturally a team that loses a bunch of starters especially their quarterback from an experienced team will usually see a drop off in offensive ppg. Read more…

Today’s blog will continue with my series of analyzing the most/least improved units over the last 20 years. Each day this week I will have a new offensive or defensive statistical category to examine and today I will breakdown total offensive yards.

There are many factors that contribute to a significant change in total offense. First, a team may see a significant improvement if they return a bunch of experienced starters including their quarterback from a team that was relatively inexperienced the year before. Naturally a team that loses a bunch of starters especially their quarterback, running back and receivers from an experienced team will usually see a drop off in total offense. Read more…

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!

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…

As you can tell by going through the magazine there is very little advertising and there are several pages that are left out due to space constraints. One article I wanted to expand on was starters lost during the year. (see Football 365 Days A Year Pg 17, 314)

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 6 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 48 out of 58 occasions for an 82.8% 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 11 teams had 40 or more starts lost to injury in ‘08 and 8 of the 11 improved their records (72.7%!). Here are the teams that suffered 32 or more starts lost to injury last year:

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…

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…

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…

Hawaii was starting their 3rd string QB, Bryant Moniz, a walk-on and they trailed Fresno St 42-3 mid-4Q before they got a TD with 7:25 left. The Warriors recovered an onside kick and got another TD with 4:42 left. Fresno St recovered the final onside attempt and finished the game at the Hawaii 22. FSU led 28-3 at the half despite only having a 249-171 yard edge as UH had a 43 yard FG blocked, Moniz was intercepted in the endzone and they also settled for a 33 yard FG. It was 21-3 when Hawaii fumbled a punt at their own 30 with 1:39 left in the half which set up a 17 yd TD pass from Colburn to West with :11 left.

Read more…