It’s always a good day when the RazorBloggers copy of Phil Steele’s College Football Preview (a.k.a. “The College Football Bible”) shows up.
For those of you who are familiar with Steele’s preseason magazine, you know how easy it is to get completely lost in it. Never has so much been put into 328 pages for the college football crazy.
If you’ve never seen it, take it from me, you can find yourself mesmerized very quickly. Stat Nerds (yours truly, included) can pore over this magazine for weeks and still find something new every time you pick it up.
A couple of things caught my attention right off the bat.
Steele likes the Razorbacks, without a doubt. With a #17 ranking overall, he has Ryan Mallett as the #3 quarterback in the country. Steele also has the Arkansas wide receiver corps ranked #1 nationally, and believes the Hogs could go 12-0 — 2 of his 9 power rankings project that success. But Steele also appears to like Auburn (#15) and Georgia (#19) just as much.
Auburn’s schedule sets up even better than Arkansas. With LSU, Georgia and Arkansas all at home, and with an improved defense, Steele nudges the Tigers past the Hogs with a projected second place finish in the SEC West behind Alabama.
Georgia, on the other hand, returns ten starters on offense. And, according to Steele, the Bulldogs have the best offensive line in the country. If freshman quarterback Aaron Murray can be serviceable, he likes the Dawgs to be his “#3 Surprise Team” of 2010; finishing second in the SEC East.
The only negative Steele mentions about Arkansas is he doesn’t believe that the Hogs can sustain a +15 turnover margin again in 2010. The +15 mark ranked sixth nationally in 2009, and is seen as “good fortune” — something that is not easily repeated.
“Teams with a positive, double digit turnover ratio had the same or weaker records 77% of the time [the following season].” — Phil Steele’s 2010 College Football Preview (Page 312)
See what I mean about a “Stat Nerd’s Paradise?” 
I love it.
On the flip side, an improved schedule and overall team experience are working in the Razorbacks’ favor. The Hogs strength of schedule went from #5 in 2009 to #33 in 2010. Swapping Vanderbilt for Florida and playing Alabama, Ole Miss and LSU at home helped that no doubt.
Steele has come up with a pretty cool “Experience Chart,” whereby he examines each team in the following categories: 1) Starting juniors and seniors; 2) Percentage of letterman returning; 3) Percentage of yards returning; 4) Percentage of tackles returning; and 5) Offensive lineman career starts.
Using that formula, the Hogs ranked #2 in the nation on the Experience Chart trailing only Boise State, who returns 20 starters in 2010. By comparison, Ole Miss ranks 117 out of 120. (Uh oh.)
In the end, Steele thinks the Hogs show improvement again, finish third in the SEC West, and play Texas in the Cotton Bowl on January 7, 2011. My gut tells me that’s on the low end of what this team is capable of doing. That’s why they play ‘em, I guess.
I think you nailed it Sunshine.
3rd in the West and Cotton is the least this team should do.
After our performance in the Liberty (and some of those losses where Mallett played about that well) I was not too high on our hopes for 2010. I thought that Cotton was our likely destination. After watching spring coverage and looking at the schedules I feel much better about a shot at Atlanta and/or a BCS bowl.
You and Phil and the rest of the college football world agree about Auburn, Georgia, Alabama, not to mention LSU and the 'doin' more with less' Dale Nutt. It is easy to see why the SEC does not need to expand.
But, we catch Georgia early before the new QB can settle in. Ball control may not work well against this Razorback team. Even a loss to Alabama is not fatal. With their schedule and the monkey on their back two losses could very well be in the offing. Auburn is still a year away although that transfer QB could make Gus very dangerous. And hopefully, we can count on Miles, Jefferson, and Nutty to self destruct at the proper time.
The Georgia game scares me even more now. I already knew the Dawgs would return 2 solid RBs and a good O-line, but now Phil Steele mentions their O-line might be the best in the Country? Crude!
If there was ever a time to fear a young and inexperienced QB, it's now.
When you have that kind of a potential running game, very good TEs for the young QB to dump off to, (remember that kid named White last year?) a very good STs unit with the home crowd to boot, an offense can be very, very conservative the majorirty of the time.
Then, just when the opposing defense (that would be us) get's complacent or gets lulled to sleep in the secondary, BHAM! A guy like a 6'5" A.J. Green leaps over a 6'0 Darius Winston to rip off a 60 yard TD.
Does anyone know what happens to Ryan Mallett when pressed to score?
That's right, can anyone spell l-o-n-g-b-a-l-l.
I hope our D-linemen come ready to play. Don't think for a second Mark Richt won't teast them early and often. Our depth up front will be so very important.
Richt showed last year he knew he was in for a track meet. He will come ready to score. But, he can't focus on Arkansas this year with South Carolina the week before. We still have a tough, tough schedule. It just happens to be easier than last year and compared to others in the SEC.
Me, I wanna get me some o' that stuff "Stat Nerds. . . can pour (sic) over [a] magazine for weeks and still find something new every time you pick it up." Journalistic fracking fluid?
I'm firing myself as editor. You're hired!
Nah. Thanks anyhow. You guys do a great job every day. Love your blog. Keep up the fine work. Looking forward to football.
Bloggers here should check out Steele’s position on a football playoff. He’s against it for several reasons the main one being it makes the regular season irrelevant. In the past I have had some very acrimonious arguments with bloggers here on my stance that in the present makeup of the NCAA that a playoff system is not realistic, no matter what coaches or ADs say in public. My opinion was that the only way this could come about was through the formation of mega-leagues, such as 12 teams with two divisions. Eight of these with a total of 96 teams would give 8 league champions who could then have a reasonable playoff scheduale. However, this would mean leaving out 24 teams from championship play (There are more than that now that are not BCS eligible). With the Big 12 defections I thought that this was the beginning of such a movement in that direction. I have been in Northeast Ohio for the past 5 months and the scuttlebutt and media outlets there had 5 teams in mind for Big Ten expansion. Nebraska was at the bottom of the list (which included Notre Dame, Missouri, Pitt, and Rutgers). So Nebraska’s decision to leave was not a shock but was a surprise to me (as it was to Big Ten fans). I had thought that it would have been a package deal with Missouri and with Pitt or Rutgers thrown in to please Joe Paterno. Personally, as the smoke has somewhat cleared, that with Mizzou (a natural traditional foe) not going I think that Nebraska has made a big, big mistake. It has taken the Razorbacks years to develope intense rivalries even with Arkansas being contiguous with three SEC States with 5 SEC Universities. Nebraska is next to Iowa. It will be interesting to see how the Big Ten will divide itself into 2 divisions and still retain rivalries.
I was in Texas recently and the Dallas Morning News sportswriters were really insulting and condescending towards Texas A & M (“A & M is nothing without Texas”). This attitude was a big reason, as explained by Gene Stallings, as to A & M’s flirtation with the SEC. How realistic this was is unknown because the SEC would be hard put to come up with a partner to go in with A & M (Mizzou perhaps?). The Arizona papers were also unhappy with the four team deal for the PAC 10 since the idea of its two schools being in a West or South Division with Texas and Oklahoma, and even OSU and T Tech, was not very appealing (Ironically the PAC 16 might have had a division with no states touching the Pacific Ocean). In any case mollifying Texas resolved that leaving Colorado as the odd man out in the PAC Ten. In case anybody missed this, the deal that Texas got was the same as the relationships that the BCS schools have with the MAC, Sunbelt, and non-FBS schools. That is, with the possible exception perhaps of Oklahoma and Texas A & M, the other schools are playing for a payday and survival of their programs. Not good but better than nothing.
Regarding Arkansas, I was in Fayetteville with two of my grandsons for footballcamp. The coaching staff, especially Coach Petrino, were really hospitable. I asked one of the coaches if they had improved kickoff and punt coverage as well as the kicking game and he said yes (of course). Special teams last year, with exception of Dennis Johnson, probably cost the Hogs 2 or 3 games. They now have a kicker that can put the ball in the end zone and hopefully the punter has developed some distance and hang time. Also, I was assured that the punt returner would actually try to advance the ball unlike
last year when the job required only that the catch be made without dropping it.
Should be a good or at least a fun year. Steele admits, even with his prediction of Auburn ahead of Arkansas, that the cards are there for a very, very good season. Steele relies a lot on statistics for prognostication but with Arkansas he hedges his bet with intuition (especially regarding the defense) since his stats say Razorbacks could be in the BCS Championship Game. Let’s hope his stats prove more reliable than his subjectivity.
The Big 10 and the Pac 10 both came to understand the value of a championship game, in money, prestige, and BCS credibility. We shall see if the rest of the sky is falling talk meant a thing. Rivalries are wonderful. Many Arkansas fans still miss Texas. Although, Phil Fulmer was quick to get Arkansas off of his schedule after a few years. But, just like Texas, Arkansas' rivalries with Tenn, LSU, and Auburn take a back seat to more significant games for those teams. Ole Miss has a chance to develop into something as long as Hooty is around but, again, the Egg Bowl will be bigger for Ole Miss. Oklahoma/Nebraska was a big game for years but never quite as big as OK/Tx. All that can be over done. Arkansas' issues as an SEC team can all be resolved with a few years on top. A couple of trips to Atlanta and an SEC title, a few wins over 'Bama and success against Ga and Fla, would do wonders.
Some of the pieces are in place. But, you just never know.