#7- Phil Steele Pre-season Poll

[DTP]

I like Phil. He's one of the better pre-season prognosticators and he's very even keeled. His reputation to the betting crowd is more important to him than being a homer.

I believe it's really hard to rank our running backs and receivers much higher unless you're going on straight potential and not results. Right now we have 1 receiver and 1 running back who have actually done anything in college football so far. Yes, guys like Lingard, Pope and Thomas have loads of potential but have proven very little on the field so far. Maybe these guys will blow up this year and Phil will rank them higher in next year's pre season magazine.

 

[Canesfan1899]

I was more shocked at OL being 25th.

I agree, If the OL is able to play up to that level we are going to make some serious noise in the College football playoff.

 

[Loose Cannon]

I like Phil. He's one of the better pre-season prognosticators and he's very even keeled. His reputation to the betting crowd is more important to him than being a homer.

I believe it's really hard to rank our running backs and receivers much higher unless you're going on straight potential and not results. Right now we have 1 receiver and 1 running back who have actually done anything in college football so far. Yes, guys like Lingard, Pope and Thomas have loads of potential but have proven very little on the field so far. Maybe these guys will blow up this year and Phil will rank them higher in next year's pre season magazine.

I don't entirely disagree with your logic, but I would like to throw depth into the mix, especially at RB. You know, not many teams out there, I would say definitely not 19, can boast having a 5 deep tailback depth chart with an average 247 composite score of 0.9214. We average a high 4 star across the 5 deep chart. That is an astonishing turn about from this time last season when nobody knew what we had behind Walton.

This season, I don't care what happens, opposing teams are going to be facing a very highly rated and fresh running back on every play. All we need is moderate O-line improvement to dominate most of our schedule.

 

[g8rh8rMD]

Phil has us at #7 in his pre-season poll. There are way to many websites, magazines, and reporters that release pre-season polls. However, of them all, I have personally liked Phil Steele's the most. His analysis does not seem to be laced with heavy bias towards the SEC. Also, he has always shown Miami love, which is more than what I can say for about 95% of the other publications.

Here's what Phil had to say about us.....
"The Hurricanes were my #2 surprise team last year. Despite entering No. 18 in the AP Poll, they would have made the playoffs if their offense was not banged up at the end and they would have upset Clemson in the ACC Title Game. Miami moves up from No. 73 to No. 49 on my experience chart and they now have a veteran quarterback, my No. 20 running back group, No. 17 receiver group, No. 25 offensive line group, No. 14 defensive line group, No. 7 linebacker group, and No. 9 defensive back group. They open with LSU in Arlington and do have Boston College, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech on the road, but none of those will be preseason ranked teams, so they have a great shot at running the table and an ACC Title win would put them in the playoffs.”

It's interesting to see his take on us beating Clemson last year, had we remained healthy. Not saying that I agree or not, but not to many people think we would have won that game, regardless of our health status. However, I fully disagree with him regarding where he ranks our WR group. There are not 5 programs that have a better WR group, let alone 16.

I read that as saying that we would have beaten Pitt if we hadn't lost so many guys on offense, and that we would have had a chance to upset Clem$on in the ACCCG, and that, had we been healthy and upset Clem$on, we would have been in the playoff. It's a lot of if's, but he's basically taking credit for picking us as his "#2 surprise team" last year and saying we were thisclose to finding ourselves in the playoff.

Regardless, I agree that Steele is legit and is one of few that looks at the college football landscape without a lot of bias and preconceptions. I wouldn't say he's shown us "love" per se, so much as he hasn't been as dismissive and disrespectful toward us as so many media types have.

I'm pretty fine with where he has our wr group. I know we all feel pretty confident in our guys, but at the end of the day, they are pretty young and relatively unproven. Part of his approach is to rely on production and experience, you can't fault him for applying that to our guys. At the same time, I'll say they will outperform that #17 ranking as well, so I'm with you there.

Honestly surprised to see our LB and DB ranked as high as they are, but again, three third year starters at LB and two returning senior safety's, plus MJ, will get you ranked pretty high. It's the counter-corollary to our wr ranking.

I won't mention my thought of wondering how highly our DL would be ranked if those two dudes would have come back for one more year. No need to talk about that any further, so I'll just keep that thought to myself.

 

[Cribby]

Lost in this this discussion is the fact that even if he did mean to say we would have beat Clemson if the offense was healthy (he didn’t), then we should lose respect for his opinion and question his judgment. A few missing dudes on offense wouldn’t have made up 35 points.

Exactly , Clemson was pushing our **** in regardless.

I mean Rosier had JT wide open for a td and missed him by 15 yards , if he couldn’t make that layup throw I doubt he hits a 10-12 more because the injured guys played.

Clemson was just better, from players to scheme.

 

[Calicanerepresent]

I read his mag in the 1980s...

 

[reg]

I read that as saying that we would have beaten Pitt if we hadn't lost so many guys on offense, and that we would have had a chance to upset Clem$on in the ACCCG, and that, had we been healthy and upset Clem$on, we would have been in the playoff. It's a lot of if's, but he's basically taking credit for picking us as his "#2 surprise team" last year and saying we were thisclose to finding ourselves in the playoff.

Regardless, I agree that Steele is legit and is one of few that looks at the college football landscape without a lot of bias and preconceptions. I wouldn't say he's shown us "love" per se, so much as he hasn't been as dismissive and disrespectful toward us as so many media types have.

I'm pretty fine with where he has our wr group. I know we all feel pretty confident in our guys, but at the end of the day, they are pretty young and relatively unproven. Part of his approach is to rely on production and experience, you can't fault him for applying that to our guys. At the same time, I'll say they will outperform that #17 ranking as well, so I'm with you there.

Honestly surprised to see our LB and DB ranked as high as they are, but again, three third year starters at LB and two returning senior safety's, plus MJ, will get you ranked pretty high. It's the counter-corollary to our wr ranking.

I won't mention my thought of wondering how highly our DL would be ranked if those two dudes would have come back for one more year. No need to talk about that any further, so I'll just keep that thought to myself.

Even though we have a difference in opinion regarding the "Clemson" comment,......excellent post, my man!