For those of you who are familiar with Steele’s preseason magazine, you know how easy it is to get completely overwhelmed with it.  Never has so much been put into 328 pages for the college football fan.  It is mesmerizing — something new can be found each time you pick it up.

For most magazines, once you read them, you pretty much put them aside or toss them in the recycle bin.  Phil Steele’s is a reference guide that we pour over in the summer and look at each week during the season for tidbits on weekly opponents.  It’s incredible.

A couple of nuggets really jumped off the pages to us when perusing through it this weekend:

CFP is “High on the Hogs” again in 2011 — After having the Razorbacks in the Top 20 last year (17th), this year’s Hogs come in 13th.  Truly, Steele has the Hogs 8th in his “Power Poll,” which is purely based on the strength of the team.

The reason for the disparity is the fact that the Hogs’ key games against top teams Alabama (PS#1) and LSU (PS#7) are on the road, and that the big non-conference matchup Texas A&M (PS#8) is at a neutral site.  In a sense, Steele thinks the Hogs are a better team than 13th, but may have trouble negotiating that schedule (Hogs SOS 20th).

Ironically, just like last year, Steele has the Hogs finishing third in the West and facing Texas in the Cotton Bowl.

CFP has defending champion Auburn finishing LAST in the SEC West — We certainly expected the Tigers to be in the lower tier of the West this year, but were shocked to see War Eagle at the bottom…even below Ole Miss.  Yikes!!!

After looking more closely, though, you realize just how much Auburn is rebuilding in 2011.  Only 6 starters (3 offense, 3 defense) return this season.

That combined with losing 31 lettermen including Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton and Lombardi Award winner Nick Fairley, has the Tigers ranked last (120th) in the NATION on Steele’s Returning Experience chart.  That also includes an offensive line with only 15 career starts — the third lowest total in the NCAA (more on that in the coming weeks).

“Last year, Texas went from the National Title game to 5-7 and Auburn will have to have some talented youngsters grow up quickly to avoid a similar fate.” — Phil Steele’s 2011 College Football Preview, page 42.

The Tigers’ schedule is also factoring in.  Given Auburn draws the top three teams from the East (at Georgia, at South Carolina, Florida), combined with the usual Western division “gauntlet,” Steele may be on to something here…Aubie may be cellar-bound.

The SEC scheduling gods have smiled on the Georgia Bulldogs in 2011 — Just when you thought Head Coach Mark Richt was on his way out (14-12 in the last two years), a little bit of good luck lands in his lap.

Despite opening with Top 5 Boise State in the 2011 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic, Georgia finds itself with only the 53rd toughest schedule.  Avoiding SEC West titans Alabama, LSU and Arkansas, getting South Carolina at home and having experience at quarterback with Aaron Murray, has Steele’s CFP pumping the Bulldogs as tops in the SEC East this year.

“UGA has 12 returning starters and signed some key newcomers who should have a huge impact. Georgia is one of my Most Improved Teams and is my upset pick to win the SEC East.” — Phil Steele’s College Football Preview, page 44.

Just opposite from the Hogs, Steele has Georgia higher (9th) in the rankings and lower in his power poll (11th) because of the weakness of their SEC slate.

Anyway, that’s just a sampling of what is contained in Phil Steele’s College Football Preview for 2011.  If you buy one preseason magazine, buy this one…you won’t be disappointed.  Only 82 days until kickoff!!!

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.

Hurry on over to PhilSteele.com and read the review because the link will be taken down soon.  The home page link is now turned off but this direct link still seems to be working.  Steele’s annual college football preview goes on sale on June 9th.

(h/t HogSportsTalk.com)

Updated 5/23/09 9:30 a.m.

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 to the point where you wonder out loud if this is the long lost cure for Attention-Deficit Disorder.

Home Field Edge — One of the things that Phil does every year is give each team what he calls a “Home Field Edge” value.  This equates to the amount of points a team can expect to benefit when playing in front of the home crowd.

As you can see below, the Hogs fare very well in this ranking.  And when you look at home points divided by average attendance, Razorback fans are actually the most valuable in the SEC.

Rank	School	Home Field Edge	2007 Avg Attendance
1	Florida	5.25	90,388
2	LSU	5.25	92,619
3	Georgia	4.75	92,746
4	Auburn	4.50	84,689
5	Tennessee	4.50	103,918
6	Arkansas	4.25	66,033
7	South Carolina	4.00	78,467
8	Alabama	4.00	92,138
9	Kentucky	3.50	68,824
10	Ole Miss	3.25	49,704
11	Mississippi State	3.00	49,296
12	Vanderbilt	2.25	34,629

Strength of Schedule — We all knew the Hogs’ 2008 schedule was brutal…and Steele just confirms that.  Only the University of Washington ranks ahead of Arkansas nationally.

Here’s the list of SEC schools, and you can see the complete ranking here.

Rank	School	Strength of Schedule
1	Arkansas	2
2	Georgia	3
3	Vanderbilt	4
4	Florida	12
5	Tennessee	16
6	LSU	19
7	Alabama	24
8	South Carolina	26
9	Ole Miss	29
10	Auburn	32
11	Kentucky	34
12	Mississippi State	62

As much as I like the Georgia Bulldogs, it’s going to be tough to negotiate that schedule and win a national championship.

Phil Steele has been the most accurate of the preseason magazines over the last nine years.  For 2008, he picks the Hogs to finish dead last in the SEC West, with a below .500 record overall.

Here’s hoping that at the end of the year, Phil wishes he had put us in his “Teams Most Likely to Surprise” list.