Ohio State #11 in Phil Steele's Top 40 countdown
I'm still amazed how he has Notre Dame ranked above us. Even though I'm beating a dead horse...his site layout sucks
Why? You beat us at the last second the last 3 years. Its not like you waltzed over us...
Thankfully we have no Gary Gray or probably Rees to worry about this year. That in itself is a 21 point swing.
Wait, isn't this only in regards to % of tacklers returning? Not an actual preseason ranking?
[EDIT]: Maybe not; looking at that area of the front page is confusing. Where does one thing stop and another start?!
Ok Phil. Whatever you say.
Happy Hour started really early at Phil Steeles home
Stupid people with stupid rankings are stupid people rankers.
on both OSU and ND for some reason. He always seems to put them both in his top 20. That being said - he usually knows what he is talking about regarding most of the other teams.
Steele doesn't usually know what he is talking about; he is the most accurate predictor of conference standings over the past 14 years.
Source: http://www.philsteele.com/Blogs/2012/May12/DBMay16.html
And a man crush on OSU? Because putting Ohio State in the top 20 on an annual basis is insane....
I don't know if I should actually take him serious after looking at the link.
It isn't just that he has UCF at #15 or UNC at #13 or FSU at #1 (per a post below - I will accept nothing less than a face-to-face explanation for that one), but I have a hard time taking anyone whose web page looks like it was there when we were still using Mosaic or IBM WebExplorer seriously.
As for Ohio, it is interesting that he lists them as a "Surprise Team" - even if they end up 8-4 or 9-3, it is hard to see #11 as appropriate when we haven't seen a game in Columbus under Meyer's system yet. The growing pains on offense may or may not be profound. Even if the ranking is just based on their level of talent, there is no guarantee that Meyer works incredible magic in the first year, although looking at their schedule, they may have a built-in 4-0 start before conference play.
Perhaps the worst thing about Steele's site, there is no way to get more information on the Miami Diet here, nor can I get my free public records search on Intelius done here.
Am I missing something about UCF? They do not seem to belong at #15.
I happened to watch UCF and Southern Miss on TV recently. #15 seems high, but UCF has some DUDES on defense and some athletes on offense. Lost a lot of close games last year with poor TO ratio.
If they have most of these guys coming back, they can be very good.
lol Michigan at #22 and Ohio State at #11? WTF is this guy smoking this year?
In general I think Steele has done a good job, but Ohio State is lucky to get ranked this year - let alone make it to #11 in the rankings. It took Michigan all season and 11 wins (including a BCS bowl win) to make it to #11 in the rankings. That's just silly.
Obviously, it COULD happen - but come on, it's well outside of a reasonable prediction.
They have a ton of talent, a great coach, and a non-conference schedule that will easily put them at 4-0. They also get Michigan and Nebraska at home...I hate to say it, but there's every reason to think that last year was their nadir.
new coach = new system. Plus they're converting to the spread. Now I don't forsee them being put back years like we were, but I'd have to imagine it will be a difficult year.
And they've got to play that #15 UCF.
And Miller is the perfect guy to have if you're switching to the spread.
Haven't you learned anything from watching our spring game the past two years?
Remember when the Lions went 4-0 in the preseason? yea that was fun
To be fair, UM converted to the spread with no suitable spread players. OSU doesn't really have that problem. The growing pains shouldn't be as severe.
So I guess we should play 'who's worse'; the walrus or the GERG?
It's lofty, no doubt. Too high for a team that went 6-7 last year.
See, you're assuming we had a system last year. Bollman's playcalling consisted of throwing pieces of fish at the playbook and seeing what stuck. New coach = system is more accurate.
Yeah but it's not about how difficult your schedule is it's about the overall strength of your team. Ohio still has a weak O-Line and the secondary looked suspect in their spring game.
Rest of the rankings:
Florida State at 1
Steele's annual pick of Oklahoma being godly again with them at 2.
LSU at 3
USC at 4
Alabama at 5
Oregon at 6
Texas at 7
Georgia at 8
Wisconsin at 9
Florida at 10
FSU at #1? Give me a freaking break - the Seminoles are rapidly displacing Notre Dame as the school annually most insanely overrated in pre-season pols.
This is from the same guy that had ohio winning the big ten last year and notre dame at preseason number 6 and us at like 40 something so yeah.
What's more amazing is that none of the "Great Predictors" catch any flak for giving us ridiculous rankings every single year.
Signed,
Phil Steal- oops can't spell my own name
Braxton can't throw consistently-OL is below average-No playmakers on O-D will be good not great. 8-4 maybe 9-3 at best.
I know part of the reason he has Notre Dame and Florida State ranked high is because their turnover margins were so bad last year and usually in the next year you see regression towards the mean.
Notre Dame especially could have had three more wins against South Florida, Michigan, and Florida State if it had a turnover margin hovering around 0 rather than -1.15 overall and a whopping -2.60 in losses.
Florida State had the same but slightly lesser problem with a -1.75 turnover margin in losses and +0.31 overall. That's what cost them against Wake Forest and maybe Clemson? I can't remember.
To compare, Michigan had a much more common number of +0.54 turnovers overall and -0.50 in losses.
Assuming both of those teams do a better job controllin the turnovers they could be in for surprisingly good years even though I don't agree with them being as high as Steele has them.
This guy is an idiot..Idk where he gets the idea North Carolina even deserves to be ranked in the top 30 let alone 13..Wow! What has two thumbs and hates Idiots?.....................THIS GUY!