Phil Steele: Pre-Season God Of Obsure Stats
Steele brings the funky knowledge that Lindy's and Athlon can only fantasize about. What I love about Phil's mag, is that in this day and age of extreme CFB oversaturation, where we pretty much know 5 minutes after our favorite safety prospect blows a .114 in a stolen car while driving without a license, and the mugshot is subsequently hitting 112 different blogs within the hour...In days where we get constant videos and in-depth reports of every spring practice and at least two first-hand accounts detailing any situation where a 4-star recruit may or may not be scratching his balls.
"Could it be Crabs?! Does his baby's momma know??"
In days such as these, I love that Phil Steele actually manages to tell me stuff I don't know about my team. You know...The one I'm obsessed with. The one I already spend countless hours wasting productivity senselessly studying and dissecting meaningless BS. And he does that for all 119 fanbases out there. Plus the neanderthal followers of Ohio State.
You gotta respect that.
I was at Publix yesterday picking up some bacon, and I happened upon Steele's SEC Preview. (I tried to finagle a copy a couple months ago "as an SEC blogger/promoter" but Steele's email Nazis weren't buyin' it...something about actually updating the site???)
Anyways, In his "Best Case/Worst Case" stat he talks about close wins and close losses from 2008.
I find it interesting that last season, Ole Miss' best case scenario was 13-0 (because the Rebs never got beat by a large margin) and our worse case was 7-6 (because they only won two close games: Ark and Florida)
On the other hand, Alabama's best case is 12-2 (their actual record) because they had two big losses to close the season. Their worse case was was 9-5 as they had three close wins (Kentucky, LSU, OM).
What are the chances of Alabama achieving their best case scenario again? Usually the truth lies somewhere in between worst and best. These people calling for Alabama to go 12-0 again (#5 in the coaches? how so?) are effing crazy. In my mind, they're like Mississippi state in 2008: The year before, all the breaks went their way, and they made the Liberty bowl. Well, the next year, the ball didn't bounce their way near as often. (4-8)
Ole Miss won 2 of 6 close games last season. Lets say win conservative 4 of 6 (.667) this season. I'd be ok with a 10 win regular season.
Again, if you want real insights into college football, look no further. If you want to rely on a bunch of glorified PE Teachers who don't watch the games, don't do their homework and most of the time don't even do the effing voting, check out the new pre-season USA Today Poll.
LSU at #9 above Ole Miss, really??
