Phil Steele has UM ranked #22
Link here.
I personally think it's a little low, especially when you consider that he has ND at #21. Notable:
Pointing downward are the fact thatthey benefitted from 3 net close wins, were +7 in TO's, hadbeneficial off (12.2) and def (18.5) ypp's and my Stock MarketIndicator (pg 27) has them -5.0. This is an improved tm thatprobably won't match LY's 11 win total with gms away fromhome vs Alabama, ND, Neb and Ohio St but unlike LY, theycould find themselves in the B10 Title game
That was like trying to read some of our commits tweets.
He's slowly improving.
I don't understand why his 2012 preview for us is full of references to 2007, '08 and '09. He even mentions the 2006 D at one point. This year's freshmen were in middle school when that team played.
The performance of past teams on which none of the current players had significant roles may mean something if the same coaching regime is in place, but not if you have an entirely new coaching staff running a completely different system.
Fred Jackson says, "hello."
There is nothing nobody can do but regurgitate game stats and results from 2011. At this point, there's nothing to argue or even discuss.
There are lots of things to discuss, like which Rush album is the best and why!
You mean "which Rush album not called Moving Pictures is the best and why." Now, discuss.
I'll bite. Top 5 non-Moving Pictures Rush albums: 1 - 2112 2 - Hemispheres 3 - Permanent Waves 4 - A Farewell to Kings 5 - Counterparts (barely edging Signals)
I believe it might be better than Moving Pictures....
My screenname agrees with you.
Granted, it was a live album, but I wore out Exit Stage Left.
It is the Returning To Glory Act of 1988.
No...
Its the Reshtunung Tosh Ghlorys Shact *LouHoltzVoicespit
a law. "Like water or dinosaurs!" - Taco
Maybe I'm missing something in the 4 point font with no spacing between lines, but if you click on his AP top #25 projection, he has Michigan as #8. Is the #22 really a ranking?
It's not made explicitly clear, but I think the #8 ranking is his projection of where we will be ranked by the AP in preseason, and #22 is his actual ranking for us.
EDIT: It IS made explicitly clear:
"I will mention it now and I will mention it numerous times throughout today’s blog but this is NOT MY preseason Top 24 for next year, it is where I project the AP Top 24 to come out at the start of the season."
Ooops... yeah, ok, I see it now. I think the first time I missed it because I was trying to find the hidden picture of a clown in the dense text by letting my eyes just go out of focus.
Eh. Seems fair to me. I think that's probably about where we'll be ranked by the end of the season. Our schedule is tough man.
I never understood why schedule is factored into rankings. Playing alabama doesn't make michigan a worse team. Losing to them would hurt them, but that hasn't happened at the time of these PRESEASON polls
True. Seems a flawed line of thinking. Preseason polls are an attempt to measure how good a team is, but also order how good people think these teams are without have objective evidence, such as losses. Everyone eyeballs the teams says these guys are this good and then those preseason rankings factor heavily into end season rankings and bowl matchups. Thus, you could say that Steele is saying that he projects Michigan to be the 22nd best team in the country when all is said and done, and this evaluation is based on his projecting how Michigan will handle the hurdles of their tough shedule. It's all semantics really, but it depends on how you view the preseason rankings: as purely preseason based or as substantive evaluations for how good these teams will be when all is said and done. Personally, I think preseason rankings are stupid, but hey, I just blog and bitch about them.
It's suing for defamation. 21 is known for such things as being able to drink in all 50 states and being a winning hand in blackjack. To be associated with 2012 ND is an insult that will not be easily overlooked.
Combined with Phil's (questionable) Preseason All-B1G rankings, I'm thinking he needs to spend some more time: (i) scouting the Midwest; and (ii) getting a font that doesn't make my eyes bleed.
Also, can anyone explain why he designed his site as an homage to Geocities?
Wow, I had completely forgotten about Geocities. Your assessment is spot on, however.
I just went to Geocites.com but it's closed. I wonder when they open, comeon Yahoo!.
This is the same genius who had Michigan going 6-6 and playing toledo in the pizza bowl last year.
Nice pick, Phil. Don't go into putting money on your prections.
I don't think many people were calling 11-2 and a Sugar Bowl win last year... In fact I'm pretty optimistic and I was thinking I'd be ecstatic with 8-4. These rankings don't matter. We were ranked # 4 back when we lost our first game to they-who-must-not-be-named. So don't get all wound up about this stuff, he's just doing his job by giving his opinion.
But the point is, he was wrong. That "everyone else did it" doesn't change that. To pick a team to go 6-6 and then have it go 11-2 is horrendous for a guy who does this for a living.
preseason rankings, blah blah blah, phil steele, blah blah blah
both are pointless
I'm watching the countdown of their pre-season top 25 ... they're down to #8 and no Michigan.
Either Michigan is lower than #25 in their eye or #7 or better.
Their reviews are pretty boilerplate ... but they have a link to a picture slide-show of each school's cheerleaders. So it's cool.
He loses his credibility when he has Notre Dame ahead of us.
It looks like Phil has jumped on Brady's bandwagon and has listed the Buckeyes at # 31.
#22 isn't ridiculous but if I was looking objectively I'd put us in the early teens and we probably will deserve to be top 5 if we only lose to Alabama.
I think the schedule looks more daunting than it is with Notre Dame and Michigan State on it but both have fallen back a bit losing major contributors (Michael Floyd, Jerel Worthy, Kork Coupons, Tommy Rees?) including their QBs but we will see.
Alabama is going to be excellent this year but there's a chance we can take advantage of a young defense early on. Of course, that's just a chance and we are still very likely to lose. But still I like our chances better in the first game of the year opposed to the last.
Nebraska returns a lot of key players but we crushed them last year so I'm less worried about that one.
Ohio State should be very good and there's a high chance we'll slip up somewhere we don't expect but just like I feel we could finish with 3 or 4 losses if a lot of things go wrong I also feel this team has a chance to go undefeated if everything works out perfectly.
Unlikely, yes, but not completely unreasonable.
I think that it all depends on how you look at it. In my mind, the ranking should be based on how many teams are better than (and how many teams are worse than) the given team. It shouldn't be based on your schedule or where you think a team will end up in January.
Since Michigan was a borderline Top 10 team at the end of last season, and they should experience something of an upgrade this year (2nd year under coaching staff, most of the offense returns....), then Michigan should be in roughly the same range now. Do you really think that 21 teams are better than Michigan? I don't.
Now Michigan might slide down the rankings and end up at # 22 if they lose to Alabama, Notre Dame, a couple of B1G teams.....but until that happens, they should probably be ranked in the 10-14 range.
Phil Steele sounds like a porn name and that website reminds me of one of those cheap t-shirt stores in Mackinac City.
I think the more underrated the team is (for now), the better. It is probably not a good thing to be ranked too high until the end of the season.
or some huge tracts of land.
...for Monty Python reference.
UP in the winter. Those are the tipis we live in. That's a pretty good-sized community too.
snnnniffffffffffffffffff.
....and I was disappointed as there was no pop-up ad which asked me if I wanted my free credit report for only $29.95.
That being said, after clicking numerous links and remembering that I still had an active Excite page which I should probably take down at long last, I will say that I had to zoom up to about 200% before I could read the stats page, and that was with my glasses ON.
I guess saying that we may not match last year's record (which is possible, but I imagine we are within a game of it either way) and then predicting the possibility of playing in the conference championship game make #22 seem like a somewhat low number.
You're trying to make too much sense out of what he wrote - the idea is just to dump out some garbage for the off-season football starved fans to soak up.
Man that is one cheesy looking website.
In the end, I must say that Phil Steele generally makes me think of Ed Glosser ("Trivial Psychic") for some reason.
..
I'm sorry but I cannot take a guy seriously when he produces that garbage of a website. I know that should not affect his prognosticating but JHC frames, html 3.0, varying fonts and text colors in the same frame??????? How can I trust his formulas or should I treat him like a mad scientist?. Maybe he is just a really cheap bastard? He could buy a template for $100 bucks that would look better than that crap.
As far as his #22 pick screw him and all the people running scared of UM vs. Alabama. We win the first game 16-14 and go on to a 11-1 regular season.