Phil Steele predicts Gator Bowl for UM, BCS title game for OSU
ESPN has listed Phil Steele's 2013 Big 10 bowl predictions here:
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/79186/steeles-forecast-sunny-for-osu-nebraska
Surprisingly, that is to say not surprisingly, Steele is bullish on OSU (predicting they will play for it all against Bama) and bearish on UM (predicting we will play Ole Miss in the Gator). Well, I guess the good news is that we will get to pound on the Rebs and show Treadwell what a big mistake he made buying into Freeze's BS.
Keep hating, Phil. Keep hating. I love the taste of your tears.
I wouldn't necessarily say that. He did predict that 2010 was going to be Rodriguez's breakthrough year.
So I don't know if he's a 'hater,' but it definitely proves that he's not always right.
It totally was Rodriguez's breakthough year, 7-6 and gained a ton of yards!!
#icantletitgo
I wish I could profit off having an astute grasp of the obvious.
So, let me get this straight?!? All I have to do insert a bunch of favorites into pre-determined bowl slots, and parade them out as "predictions?" Two-time defending champion is going to be champion again -- brilliant! I'm officially an expert.
And this Ohio State blindness is reaching absurd proportions. Removing my maize-and-blue-colored-glasses for a moment, I have to respect the Buckeyes as an elite team. But maybe some of you are like me in that I get frustrated by this unnerving suspicion that none of the "so-called experts" actually watched all of Ohio State's games last year, like most die-hard Michigan fans did. I'm convinced 90%+ of them just read box scores and watched the 2nd half of the The Game.
No one pays attention to their average 2012 defense. People only see two pre-season(!) All-Americans, and, of course, that must mean their defense is elite. Notwithstanding their two stud sophomores on the DL in Washington and Spence, they only return 4(!) defensive starters. Simon is gone. Hankins is with the Giants. Stop-gap LB Boren is snow plowing with daddy.
It's as if collective amnesia has erased the 2012 Cal game from memory, or the 2012 Nebraska game, or the 1st half of The Game. Did anyone pay attention to the razor-thin line their offense lives on in regrads to Miller's health? Braxton is truly a Heisman-caliber talent, but he's Denard 2.0 when it comes to injury-risk. Not wishing anything bad upon the young man, sincerely, but OSU is one play away from offensive mediocrity. Don't give me this Kenny Guiton pulled off the Purdue miracle nonsense. OSU is an 8-4 team without Miller.
With Miller, I see 10/11-2. Depending on which games they lose, I see either Rose Bowl or Capital One for them. But MNC ... you've got to be friggin' kidding me! Even if they do manage to catch lighting in a bottle again, and go 13-0, half the country would secede from the Union before allowing them to get blown out again by a 1-loss SEC team.
Sorry ... rant over. Maybe I'm just annoyed it keeps raining on my vacation.
Braxton is truly a Heisman-caliber talent, but he's Denard 2.0 when it comes to injury-risk. Not wishing anything bad upon the young man, sincerely, but OSU is one play away from offensive mediocrity.
Braxton Miller could not get injured even if he tried. Seriously, watch the games. Even Brian will tell you Miller is inexplicably invincible.
If Miller does get injured, I will laugh because I'm always happy to be wrong in this case. And of course it will blow OSU's chances at winning anything.
But I wouldn't bank on it happening. Urban must have sold all the souls of his children to the devil in exchange for Braxton Miller never getting injured.
He left the Purdue game in an ambulance
And returned riding a jet-powered fire-breathing shark-bear!
The reason Miller doesnt seem to get hurt as often as Denard is pretty simple
6'2 & 230 > 5'11 & 190
Dude is a tackle breaking machine. He does go out of bounds when necessary (smart), but that's all. Just because someone plays for the other team doesn't mean they suck.
I agree that the defense is a huge concern and I would like to think that a majority of Buckeye fans understand that going undefeated again is extremely hard even if we do have an easy schedule. You mentioned that the D has 2 All Americans in Roby and Shazier and you touched on the two sophomores (not a stretch to think that at least one could be an AA by the end of this year) but we also have both returning safeties and have a plethora of young talent in the defensive back field. I feel as though many of us are still humbled by what happened in '07 and '08 and a lot of this national championship talk is coming from pundits outside of Ohio. With that said, this is an extremely talented bunch on offense. The only question mark is right tackle on what should be the best offensive line in the B1G which will be blocking for the best QB and arguably the best RB in the B1G. Not to mention, the Buckeyes have Jordan Hall back who, before he got hurt last summer in a freak accident, was better than Hyde. Add in experienced WRs and TEs and it is not much of a stretch to say that this offense should keep them in every game and should be able to score with the best offenses in the country.
two months before the college football season starts is an assinine waste of time at best, and most likely a shameless attempt to get clicks. Good journalism is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
Even if we only snag 9 wins, I see maybe the Capital One Bowl where this team breaks through, beats a top-10 Florida or LSU team, and starts to finally get some national respect heading into 2014. And that's when the real fun begins.
Phil lives in Cleveland, Ohio and has admitted that he is an OSU fan, thus the UM hate. He claims that he is completely impartial in his evaluations but his track record of overvaluing OSU and its personnel (look at he number of OSU guys he puts on his All Big 10 teams every freaking year) while usually bagging on UM belies his claim.
For the record, I think OSU will probably go 11-1 in the regular season (with their schedule anything worse than 10-2 would be an epic failure) and has an outside shot at getting into the MNC game but his prediction of the Gator bowl for UM is preposterous.
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/phil-steeles-2012-projections-um-best-bigten
Doesn't seem too low..
It's entirely possible that OSU gets to the title game if they make it past us. They will get hammered by whoever they play in that game. I bet Meyer throws a game so he doesn't have to be smoked on that stage.
The schedule is just so pathetic that it can't be said enough. I fully expect Urb to be 23-0 heading into Ann Arbor.
for second in the conference--everything beyond that is gravy. I see us pulling a few tough ones out and maybe losing one we've got no business losing, and in close contention in every game. But that does not place us in the Gator Bowl; Phil Steele is trolling heavily here.
An informed outside commentator looks and sees a possible struggle at Beaver Stadium, a dogfight with ND, an always-tough battle with Sparty, Nebraska, and OSU at home. NU away will also be a battle. We'd have to lose all of those to be in the Gator, no?
the BIG TEN winning very many of those matchups..........no way Nebraska will beat Oregon, and SParty versus Florida - Yikes!
Thanks Nostradamus.
Phil is seriously underestimating this team and I have no problem with it at all!
I wish they were saying the same stuff about Ohio State. In 2002 no one gave us a shot, in 2007 we were favored. I like being the 'dog a lot better.
I hate to break it to everyone outside of Wolverine Nation, but Michigan is going to beat Ohio this year.
EDIT: Wow, just realized the Gator Bowl is fifth place Big Ten team. Is Steele insane? No way in hell M finishes fifth. Our team is good and the schedule is favorable. I expect at LEAST ten regular season wins. I'm sick of being worried about the upcoming season and Ohio. Fuck this. This is Michigan and I say bring anyone on. I'm extremely confident that M will have a great season.
I see virtually no way OSU goes undefeated two years in a row, which is what they'll have to do to play in the MNC against Alabama (which seems equally unlikely). A team goes undefeated when they probably should have lost 2-3 games, and now everyone believes that a team with a mediocre offense and a young, okay defense will win every game because they have a big QB who has accuracy issues? Good luck with that Steele.
As for UM, Gator sounds a bit low but who knows. The loss of Kovacs and some shakeup on offense does scare me, and a bad loss could definitely happen early on.
It is fair to question the defense, I give you that. But mediocre offense? Returning 4 of 5 starting O Linemen, Carlos Hyde, Jordan Hall, 5 of the top 6 receivers from a year ago, Braxton Miller, and some very good incoming freshmen? They averaged 37 points and 423yds per game a year ago. It's probably safe to assume the offensive inconsistencies from last year will be improved upon this year. They will have to prove on the field that they are elite, but they should be very good on offense.
I really not trying to start a flame war with a Buckeye fan, but this is exactly what I'm talking about when I write about the pervasive laziness involved in evaulating the 2012 Ohio State Buckeyes. Again, if you actually watched the games last year, you know Ohio State is NOT an offensive juggernaut.
The poster writes OSU averaged 37 points and 423 yards per game in 2012. The problem with this point is that the Buckeyes played only 4 teams ranked in the top 26 in DFEI. (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/feidef2012
Sparty, which was ranked 2nd last year in DFEI, essentially shut the Buckeyes down, holding them to 17 points. If Sparty wasn't so darn anemic on offense, they would have been burning couches in delight on 9/29/12.
2012 Wisconsin was rated 12th in DFEI. They gave up only 14(!) points in regulation to the Buckeyes.
We were 26th in DFEI. We gave up only 26 points at their place. This is even more impressive when one considers our 2nd-half offensive play calling.
The most legitimate offensive performance the Buckeyes put in last year was against 19th DFEI ranked PSU, where they put up 35 points. (BTW, PSU threw a pick 6 to OSU in the 3rd quarter, so it really was only 28 points).
Bottom line, OSU has an elite or above average offense when it plays average or below average defensive teams. Until I see the OSU offense dismantle an elite or above average defense with my own eyes, I'm going to continue to question predictions like Mr. Steele's, and posts like the ones above.
In Nebraska's last two games of 2012-2013, their defense made a dumpster fire look like a well-planned event. The Black Shirts shamed themselves in giving up 70(!!!) points on a neutral field to Wisconsin, and then 45 points to Georgia on a quasi-neutral Citrus Bowl field. If Nebraska was the Buckeyes offensive shining moment, consider my point proven ... the Buckeyes on offense are elite/above average when they play average/below average defenses. I think also may prove Bronxblue's point that the OSU offense was mediocre last year.
What will see this Fall? We will see the Buckeyes barnstorm through a laughable schedule, while they remain entrenched in the Top 5. No one outside of fans of the B1G will really watch their games, even though they scheduled 3 night games against Wisconsin, NW and PSU. If they go 13-0, half the country will still assume they're frauds because the B1G is viewed as a joke.
If they happen to hiccup once, goodbye MNC. If they slip up twice in the regular season, they'll still likely win that other division with the other silly name. If they lose twice before they come to Ann Arbor, things will be real interesting in the land where Urban walks on water. There might be a lot of full coolers if that happens.
If Jordan Hall is your #1 offensive threat, then I'm starting to feel really bad for not being more bullish about my Wolverines. I know I'm biased as heck, but I wouldn't trade Jeremy Gallon for Jordan Hall even up.
It isn't lazy to opine that the Buckeyes are B1G elite, although that opinion falls squarely into the category of having an astute grasp of the obvious. It is lazy, however, to predict the Buckeyes as favorites to play for the MNC based on 2012 results.
I must be typing things without realizing it. A) I'm not the one saying they should go to the MNC- in fact, in my earlier posts I said that those sentiments were coming from people outside of Columbus more so than people in Columbus. B) I never once said that Nebraska's defense was any good. I just said that was the game that Ohio State's offense played best. If you can't put bias aside, then there is no point in having this discussion. Jordan Hall had the starting spot over Carlos Hyde before his injury and Hyde proved to be quite a good running back. Coming from someone who not only watched every game last season, but the season before, the improvement made by the SAME players from Luke Fickell's team to Urban Meyer's team was nothing short of tremendous. Now those SAME players are back for year 3.
I get where you're coming from. Ironically, the best thing that could happen to the Buckeyes would be a 9-2/10-1 Michigan team heading into The Game. If I were Buckeye fan, I'd be cheering like wild for Michigan to beat ND, and then have ND go on a big run of win afterwards. That would help the national impression of the B1G.
Thanks for posting over here, as I see you post on 11W under the same name. I wish more Buckeye fans (and other B1G fans as well) would contribute. Enjoy the 4th tomorrow. Happy Birthday, 'Merica!
Phil Steele isnt exactly Miss Cleo..
Or.. Is... he?!
Well that guy can suck my balls.
an ESPN Comment in that article from a husker fan says they will average over 50 points a game this year....and still, Steele may be more full of shit than that comment
over hyped like OSU! They probably have one of the easiest schedules on any top 10 team. I'm still hoping they come to Ann Arbor undefeated and we take down the so called number 1 ranked team! Expose the national champion frauds for what they really are!
one true seer
N'Western and Ohio are the only games that I consider a "toss-up"
Arrogant? Probably. But the world will just have to live with it, because it doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Note: I just hope an L to N'Western doesn't cost us a shot to get to Indianapolis.
I would be extremely shocked if we go the 7-5ish which seems par for a Gator Bowl bid.
Some of Steele's previous predictions:
2009: No Bowl; UM to go 2-6 in conference play (Actual: No bowl, 1-7 conference record)
2010: Gator Bowl (Actual: Gator Bowl)
2011: Little Cesar's Pizza Bowl (Actual: Sugar Bowl)
2012: Outback Bowl (Actual: Outback Bowl)
That's as far back as I could find in his archived posts on his website, so he's 3-1 with us over the past 4 years. Not shabby, but I think he's going to be surprised this year.