Phil Steele Preseason All-B1G Teams
Offense
1st: Denard Robinson, Roy Roundtree, Taylor Lewan
2nd: Fitz Toussaint
3rd: Patrick Omameh
4th Jeremy Gallon
Defense
2nd: Kenny Demens, JT Floyd, Jordan Kovacs
3rd: Craig Roh
4th: Thomas Gordon
I'm surprised to see Roundtree so high and no Jake Ryan on the 3rd or 4th team, but a pretty solid and balanced Michigan contingent nonetheless.
EDIT: link http://www.philsteele.com/Blogs/2012/May12/DBMay23.html
Roy is 1st team All Big Ten? That's shocking. I hope that comes to fruition.
I think it speaks more to the lack of quality receivers around the conference.
Yeah, good point. I remembered it being so deep last year, but this year is pretty weak come to think of it. If our WRs can step up and be consistent, we will be very dangerous.
That was my thinking as well, but also on more of a Michigan level. It seems like Roy will be getting a lot of action this year because of a shortage of big time playmaking recievers. I'm sure if Stonum was still around we'd see him on the 1st team and Roy predicted to make 2nd/3rd team All Big Ten.
Also of note, Wisconsin has the most on the 1st team (7) while The Garden Snakes have most overall (16). Ohio has second next most at 15. Boo.
Phil obviously didn't consult Everitt (Braxton Miller is 2nd team QB).
One thing to keep in mind re: any Phil Steele B1G stuff...he is a major OSU slappy.
Steele grew up (and still resides) in Cleveland, OH and is a diehard Buckeye fan. He claims impartiality when putting together anything B1G and OSU related, but his true colors come shining through pretty clearly.
last year, with Posey, Toon, McNutt, Hemingway, Cunningham, Belcher, etc. i know there are more, but there were a lot of guys that stuck around a long time who had veteran qbs. this year, not so much, ie gallon 4th team means phil says he is better than 16 other starting wrs in the conference.
OP - gallon is also 3rd team punt return
The negativity towards Roy is one of the most perplexing things I've seen in the online Michigan community. Yes, last year he struggled to produce nearly the same numbers as he did as a sophomore (900 yards and 7 TDs), but there were a slew of senior pass-catchers around (Hemingway, Odoms, Grady, Kroger...not to mention Gallon finally emerging) and a new offensive system installed. (The run game was similar, but the pass game was very changed.)
Roundtree's recruiting profile, a 4-star with offers from Nebraska and Purdue, is at least as good as, but probably better than, most of the incoming commitments who people are VERY EXCITED about (Dukes, York, Chesson).
Roundtree:
- senior
- off-field leader
- talent, proven production, and exhibited big-play ability
- great rapport with our super-talented starting QB (who gets to have his first season of stability)
- a wide-open opportunity to replace all the departed seniors at WR
I'd be a little surprised if he ISN'T on one of the all-conference teams.
You forgot to mention "contact lens wearer" which I still find one of the most perplexing things ever. How did/do we not test everyone's eyes once a year? Dukes, York, Chesson, get thee to an optometrist please.
I'm most surprised about no Countess on any team. I don't see him having a sophomore slump (knock on wood), I have a feeling he's gonna have a monster year.
This seems to be a list produced with a minimum of research, based solely on name recognition. Pretty much everyone on it is either a multi-year starter or a big name. As a guy who has only started a few games, even though he certainly looks impressive, it's not surprising that Countess didn't make this list.
Wow, none of the quarterbacks are known for their passing. Are there seriously no better QBs (apart from Denard) than Braxton Miller, TM, and Scheelhaase?
Well, I would put Vandenberg ahead of Martinez and Scheelhaase, especially if you're talking about passers, but the B1G has a lot of running QBs and not many passing ones. Maybe the spread CAN work in this conference...
I've watched 4-5 Nebraska games over the last two years, and Martinez is without a doubt the weak link in their offense. His running ability is nice, but not otherworldly, but his passing is completely awful. It's a 50-50 shot whether he can hit an open receiver 15 yards downfield, so they can't build any semblance of a consistent passing game, and he hasn't shown any signs of progress. Basically, Nebraska is playing with freshman Denard, except wearing ankle weights.
Fitz has always been a dominant back, he just needs to stay healthy.
I love Toussaint, but it's hard to argue he should be ahead of Montee Ball, who had 33 rushign TDs last year.
I legitimately think BWC will be 3rd or 4th team at the end of the year. I'm becoming more optimistic with each passing day. I like his new attitude.
I haven't had Kool-Aid in years, but the stuff you're drinking sure does look tasty from here... I hope you're right.
exactly makes you think that? I hope you are right, but it takes way more than a better attitude to go from nowhere to 3rd team all conference. And with that new attitude, we've just gone through a spring where the coaches complimented his attitude but didn't really have a lot of new praise for his ability to play football.
Countess not on any of the teams is a crime.
would you have dreamed 2 years ago that without arguably the best cb of the team, UM would still have 3 defensive backs representing on this list?
I'm actually surprised that Michigan doesn't have more defensive players on any of the teams. I think that when you return many starters or key players from a top 25 defense in the country if I'm correct, one would think that more of those players would make the list. What can you do though, these preseason polls are meaningless and basically just give us something to debate until the games start.
and there is no accounting for next year's jake ryans.
the thing with UM's d, guys like Ryan and Countess is that they are fairly young, and a lot of times it takes a couple seasons to build your reputation.
Phil Steele apparently produced this list by jotting down the names he recalled hearing the most over the past few years, so it's not surprising that guys with less than a season of production don't show up often.
I think that is a result of last year's D being greater than the sum of its parts, which is a testament to our defensive coaching staff. We have a lot of good players, but not a lot of great players.
and I don't think I've ever encountered a text-only web page that takes as long to fully load. Phil needs to invest in bigger, stronger hamsters.
It isn't text only. There is a huge picture with only text in it... But yeah, that website needs work.
No, the site is just fine and the look has the right feel for a fortune teller/guru. Especially the color and font selection for the text. I trust that if you decipher Mr. Steele's formulas you'll find the exact location of the lost city of Atlantis that housed the race of giant lizard people.
I thought Countess should have made 3rd/4th team.
No Jake Ryan?
Confusing to say the least.
Did anyone putting out these previews happen to watch the second half of Michigan's season? Especially the Sugar Bowl? Ryan was nothing short of excellent.
Why does he have four all-Big Ten teams? In a 12-team conference, that amounts to one-third of all starting players. That kind of waters down the concept of "all-conference player."
Flod over Countess and Demens over Ryan. He must not have watched the games.
Did you see how many players Bama had ranked from their Defense? Hoepfully that's just a little extra hype from winning a title.
If Alabama has players ranked in the preseason all B1g Ten teams, we are all truely hosed.
thoughts no Blake Countess? Kovacs only 2nd team C'MON PHIL!
Roundtree should be 2nd team
Countess should be 3rd team
Ryan should be 4th team
Yes - 4 teams is a bit much. Overall, I like Phil Steele's information though - that is the only college sports magazine I buy all year.
I've never bought Phil Steele's magazine before, and if the research and thought he put into this ranking is reflected in his magazine, I don't see myself ever buying it in the future.
I've bought Steele's magazine the last 10 years, so I'm pretty familiar with what he publishes. There are two main aspects to the magazine.
One is comprised of his various predictions for the end-of season bowl matches, including the national championship, the best players at each position, who's going to finish in what order in each conference, what teams are dark horses, what teams will benefit from fewer turnovers, and so on. He makes a big deal of trumpeting how he's been the most accurate college football analyst since the Late Cretaceous, and frankly many of his assertions about his own accuracy seem a bit suspect to me. His predictions can be either surprisingly accurate, or completely off, which is basically little different from most other predictions. I agree with the others here who have surmised that he simply repeats names that he's familiar with from the previous seasons, which probably explains why he ignored Jake Ryan.
The other part of the magazine, and the part that is far, far more valuable than the predictions hoo-ha, is the straight statistical data and roster information going back several years that he compiles for each team in D1. I haven't found any other publication with anything remotely close to the sheer mass of data and statistical information that he compiles, and that's why I've bought the magazine. I'd buy it for that alone, even if he stopped making predictions. If you can find the mag in your area, give it a look before you dismiss it. If you're a college football trivia junkie like me, it will be worth it on that basis alone.
DEVIN GARDNER... FIRST TEAM WR
Right??????
Frank Clark and Blake Countess will be on someones list by year end.
but since when is football played 12 vs 12? Is this the standard protocol for these type of teams or is it usually the standard 11 on Offense and Defense?
Most people toss in an extra RB/WR on offense and a LB/DB on defense. These positions are not 4 down types so I think that justifies their thinking??