The Longhorn Opinion Array The Preseason Top 25

Just reprint the Jones Top Ten, jackass.

Oh wait, you hate Georgia. And puppies. And America.

I won’t. I know for a fact that you get them from Longhorn Bob.

Phil Steele = Max Emfinger – bad perm + 19 IQ points + 3 x (Hucksterism PT Barnum coefficient) + Writing Ability of Junior High Girl Attempting Sexting

[Smiles while nodding and giving thumbs up. Speechless]

The one nice thing about Phil Steele is that he’s not afraid to render an opinion in public, even if it’s completely opposite of the opinion he gives on the pay site. It’s the same game most of these other bozos play, except that they want to make sure they get your money first. I’m not sure which is better, but Phil sure does sound smooth on the radio every Thursday afternoon at 4:00.

When I close my eyes, I actually believe I’m reading Phil Steele there, Scip.

And, somehow or another, I got on his mailing list for his can’t miss bettor pick freebie newsletters. So, I’m quite the Phil Steele expert around here.

I will say that his annual college book is good for quick data mining on past schedules, etc. It’s worth $10 for that. His predictions aren’t much better than most of the 8th graders who hang around certain web site bbs’s.

Christ in crack pipe, that was great.

johnnymac = phil steele’s agent

Brilliant. My biggest gripe with Steele is that 90% of the info on a team page is about shit that happened 4 years ago or players who USED TO play a certain position. There’s very little substance on the current team and how it may move forward. Anyway, great stuff. The “ZOOOOoooom” part was my favorite.

One small correction, we manage to get ISU in Austin this year, it is in 2011 when we have to face the beast that is Jack Trice stadium.

When Cyclone fans take over DKR, it feels like a road game.

What time are you on the radio tonight Scip?

Johnnymac -
 
You caught that too.
 
Cim -
 
If you close your eyes, you can’t possibly be reading. I fully agree that his magazine is worth the $10.
 
lazer -
 
Your name is lazer. You pretty much have to like ZOOOoooom! I’ve never understood the retrospective fixation that Steele has either, but I do know it’s a boon to sports writers who can pretty much bang out 98% of their articles with his mag and a SID press release.

His retrospective fixation allows him to C&P the prior year’s edition and have most of his team write-ups done prior to spring ball.

But he is worth 10 for sure.

Before last conference season I mocked Phil Steele for picking KU to win one conference game…. never again.

I’m convinced antagonist Orson Swindle actually lost a bet to that protagonist Peter Bean.

Phil Steele = Max Emfinger – bad perm + 19 IQ points + 3 x (Hucksterism PT Barnum coefficient) + Writing Ability of Junior High Girl Attempting Sexting.=Nostradamus compared to this board.

My gripe with Steele is the lack of the hard cold NCAA stats on the team’s pages, especially national rankings (e.g., passing offense, rushing offense, pass D, rush D).

Othewise I’ll take the historical fluff along with good (detailed info on the 2 deep, incoming recruits, etc.) compared to the vaccuous offerings of the other preseason mags. Yahoo/rivals looks like it was put together by two volunteeer bloggers at the last minute (no doubt following ESPN College Football Live’s local blog reporters on the cheap initiative).

I heard him say today that UNL and blowu would pound a mudhole in our ass. Or something like that. Considering what we have for an O, that is probably pretty accurate.

My god, I just stumbled over to his website out of curiosity and I think I just opened a wormhole into a GeoCities site, circa 1998.

The only things missing were the hit counter, frames, and a continuous MIDI loop of “Mr. Touchdown” . I got scared and rolled back to Lycos, from whence I came.

Arriviste – nicely done.

Scipio – send me your ballot.

Geocities and Lycos…that brings me back.

You want an explanation? You got an explanation!

My explanation for Northwestern is simple: They’re experienced on the offensive line (top 7 players returning), talented on the defensive front seven, and have an excellent fit in Persa at quarterback. They’re a halfback away from getting dangerous. Plus they should be favored in their first 8 games, meaning they have plenty of time to solidify before they see the big boys.

As for MTSU, well, they blitz from everywhere and they have an excellent…OK, it’s just because I hate Minnesota, and MTSU plays Minnesota in week one, and I wanted to send them some karmic support.

Which brings me to Texas. Three things worry me about Texas, and those three things are the only reasons why I have UT below the teams ahead of them. First, I don’t trust Gilbert yet, and that performance against Alabama (under terrible circumstances, to be fair) didn’t help. I’ll gladly admit I was wrong when I thought Mack was an overrated coach a few years back (turns out it was just the effect of having Tim Brewster on staff), but one fact remains: Mack hasn’t done “it” (as in, 12-ish wins) without an experienced upperclassman quarterback. As far as I can tell, Gilbert isn’t there yet. Second, the holes on the offensive line play to my fears up front (made less scary by your Iowa-esque ability to find giant people to fill in). Third, while there’s a lot of the defense back, it’s a lot of a pretty bad defense; out of the 11 BCS teams Alabama played last year, only Kentucky gave up more points to them. This wasn’t an isolated occurrence, either. 39 to aTM (only TT gave up more), and you were the only team to allow Nebraska to score in double digits (I keeeed, I keeeeeed). They’re not huge holes (well, the QB thing could be), which is why they’re fifth. But they’re bigger concerns than I have with ’Bama (exp. QB + Heisman TB + Saban and talent on D), OSU (exp. QB + bevy of tailbacks and a dominant line + nasty D – Tresselball) and Wisky (same as OSU, only with a different kind of coach problem). And OU? Bob Stoops went to Iowa. So there.

I like how his listing of team schedules lists both teams, even though it is organized by team anyway. That way, you don’t forget which team schedule you are looking at.

http://www.philsteele.com/polls/Non_Conf/Non%20Conf%20bigxii.html

“Cim -

If you close your eyes, you can’t possibly be reading. I fully agree that his magazine is worth the $10. " – Scip
-————-
My Macbookpro has a braile screen, Scip. Cool technology from that Jobs guy.

great Scip, you were making fun of a blind guy

“but one fact remains: Mack hasn’t done "it" (as in, 12-ish wins) without an experienced upperclassman quarterback.”

Vince was 11-1 with a top 5 ranking and a Rose Bowl win as a sophomore

“Third, while there’s a lot of the defense back, it’s a lot of a pretty bad defense; out of the 11 BCS teams Alabama played last year, only Kentucky gave up more points to them. "

WTF? I agree wholeheartedly with your first 2 reasons but this is just silly. I have done my best to block that game from my memory and refuse to go back to review it, but go check how many of those points were the result of turnovers by the offense and report back.

Unless of course, your “I keeed, I keed” was meant to apply to all of point 3 rather than just the Nebraska comment, then I’ll just shut up.

@ Hawkeye

I hear you on scoring, but Bama put up 263 yards of total offense. They dont score that many points without our offense handing them the ball at every opportunity. One hand feeds the other though, and maybe more field position would have made them gain more yards.

The Texas defense held Bama to its lowest Yards Per Play on the year. So, pick your metric, but I’m not worried about the defense that showed up at Bama.

NU you have to be kidding me. They gained 106 yards on 55 plays. Let that sink in. Point me to any other game, against any team that was one game away from a BCS bowl that showed that kind of defense.

Aggie there are no words. You got us there.

@stuckinmn and @Boddicker

I think Boddicker makes my point on the Alabama game. It’s true that there weren’t many yards, but it’s also true that Alabama put up 24 in the first half and then went into the shell, scared to death that McElroy would lose it for them if given the opportunity. What happened next looks a lot like my chosen team: Sit on a lead and lean on the defense until it breaks. Hence the low yardage output.

In retrospect, yeah, I don’t have as many quibbles with the ’09 UT defense after taking a close look, so you can probably ignore my third reason, or at least severely discount it.

(And Boddicker, I was kidding about Nebraska. Hence the “I keeed” at the end of it.)

@dick

I stand by my 12-ish win point. That was a good team, though. Finished #5 in the polls. Just how this team starts.

THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!

Hawkeye State -
 
Glad you could join us on dial-up from your tenement squat in Des Moines.
 
I actually wasn’t quibbling with your ranking of Texas – anything between 5-12 makes sense to me. If anything, I’m leery of Spencer’s wild enthusiasm for us and I feel in some subtle way it’s cursing my team.
 
None of us have any concerns for our defense and the lovable madman who runs it, but defining defense more broadly as “ability to stop scoring” a measure that includes both offense and special teams, makes sense. We constantly gave our guys bad fields to defend last year. Fortunately, we made up for it with a lot of scoring on defense and special teams our own selves. Thus, our defensive stats look wildly distorted – very meager yardage allowed (250 per game), low yards per play, but scoring defense (16 ppg) about 5 ppg too high for those numbers.
 
I couldn’t fathom Northwestern, even after you explained it to me, nice and slow, until I actually looked at their schedule. What a disgrace. Even after losses to Michigan St, @ Penn State, to Iowa (hahahahaha!), and @ Wisconsin they still have a shot at 8 wins because they play 8 teams ranked somewhere between 90-120 in the FBS.
 
I guess you’re calling them for an upset of one of those four – NOW WHAT TEAM COULD THAT BE?!?!
 
You’re also predicting pollsters will only look at records rather than schedule and you may be right.