Read somewhere that Phil Steele is usually pretty accurate in his preseason prognostications and if so I like where he thinks UF should be ranked but when you fill in one of the top 2 missing with FSU ( Okla must be the other one) then UF plays three in the top ten ( Ga, FSU, LSU ). http://www.philsteele.com/
Any thoughts on where your team is ranked by Steele? Sometimes these things pan out....sometimes they don't but by and large it does give an indicator of where a team stands heading in to the season in regard to returning talent....scheme...coaching.....schedule......and national expectations.
The Irish at #21 is pretty fair, we still don't have a starting QB, and in football as we all know if you don't have a QB you'd better have the 2002 Ravens defense! Our problem as all Irish fans know is that last years starter Tommy Rees is a journeyman QB at best. But the more talented guys behind him have either on a few snaps as a college QB or zero snaps as college QB's. The Texas ranking is very generous. We certainly could be that good as our defense should be a top 25 at worst and maybe a top 10 defense and our offense has the #1 RB in both the 2011 class (Malcolmn Brown) and the 2012 class (Johnathon Gray) not to mention a 3rd RB in Joe Bergeron who would start for most any program in the country. But like ND we have a big question at QB. Presumptive starter David Ash did not show much last year so the question is has he improved, and his backup and co-starter in Case McCoy is just not a high Div1 QB and we have a raw freshman in Conner Brewer as the 3rd option. Also our WR's are unproven except for Jaxon Shipley who is as good as brother and if the QB's have improved then he could be one of the nations best. OL is a little bit of a question mark.
I'm very surprised at Michigans ranking, they have one of the great players in college football at QB in Denard Robinson and are in their 2nd year with Brady Hoke and Al Borgeous at OCoord. They are coming off a great season and should have a lot of mo going for them. They do have a tough non-conf schedule opening with Alabama and having to play the Air Force option before taking on Notre Dame in South Bend.
I'd say #21 is more than fair for the Irish. We haven't beaten a Top ten team since Sept. 2005 and we have at least three on the schedule this year. If we go 8-4 Kelly should get some votes for Coach of the Year.
I think #21 is fair for the Irish and re: Michigan I think Steele does take into account the difficulty of schedule. With that said the AP and Coaches rankings do not take much of the schedule difficulty into account so I can see Texas and UF dropping a tad in those preseason polls and Michigan moving in to the top ten with ND somewhere around #17 or so. I'll be happy if UF hovers around #15 in the two real polls and they may not even be that high because those polls, in addition to what I said above are also about "what have you done for me lately.....er last year."
We have gone from drought conditions to flood conditions down here in SW Florida so I'll bet REC has his hands full right now.
Buckeyes at #11, due to strength of our potential defense. I will be happy with a 10-2 record, maybe even 9-3