Daily Blog • June 16, 2010

My 2010 College Football Preview Magazine has so much information in it that it would take months to go thru it all. It is like 120 media guides rolled into one.

Magazine is a loose term for it as the Preview is more like a book with over 100 pages more than any other college football magazine. Not only does it have more pages but the magazine has 2 to 3 times the amount of information on each page! That gives my magazine 3 to 4 times the amount of information of any other magazine!
I mention all of this because there are even parts of the magazine that I myself forget about during the year. Every spring once I have finished my conference write ups, Top 40, All-American and All-Conference Teams I wrap up the “other” pages in the magazine. One of those pages that I find a lot of fun is the projected stats which is on page 324 and 327.

I have in-depth power ratings which rates each team’s rush offense, pass offense and points scored as well as all three categories for the defense. I have my computer match up each team vs all of their opponents and play the games out during the year. These projected statistics are not some random number I throw into the back of the magazine to fill up space (I never have ANYTHING in the magazine that is used for filler!). They take into account this year’s team vs this year’s schedule and they are remarkably accurate.

Let me give you a few examples from last year:

North Texas allowed 47.6 ppg on defense in 2008. When I threw their numbers into my computer in the spring of 2009, my computer said that North Texas would make great strides and allow just 32.4 ppg in 2009 and they were my #1 Most Improved Team in Def PPG. When the dust cleared from the 2009 season North Texas allowed 35.6 ppg, a 12 ppg improvement which easily was one of the best in the country.

On the offensive side, Michigan avg just 20.3 ppg in 2008. In 2009 the Wolverines were in their 2nd year of Rich Rodriguez’s spread offense and they brought in two super frosh QB’s who were better adept at running the ball. In the spring, my computer took those factors in account and projected the Wolverines to avg. 30.5 ppg in ’09 which ranked as my Most Improved PPG in the country! Even though Michigan finished just 5-7 last year, their offense improved dramatically and avg 29.5 ppg which was just 1 ppg off of my computer’s projection that was made months in advance!

I could go on and on with the examples because I find projecting statistics as fascinating as projecting wins and losses. If you check out pages 324 and 327 you will get my complete statistical projection for each team in both yards and points for the year.

Also if you need a complete breakdown of the accuracy of my computer’s projections for Most Improved Teams check out my February 17-March 1 blogs (in the archives) and you will be amazed at how close my computer projects the most improved and least improved teams in several categories.

Here are the Top 15 Offenses this year in “Most Improved Points Scored.”

Most Improved Offensive PPG
Rank
Team
1
Rice
2
South Carolina
3
Nebraska
4
Ball St
5
Georgia
6
Miami, Oh
7
Army
8
Tulsa
9
San Jose St
10
Washington St
11
New Mexico St
12
Oklahoma
13
Wisconsin
14
San Diego St
15
Ohio St

Here are the Top 15 Defenses this year in Most Improved Points Allowed.”

Most Improved Defensive PPG
Rank
Team
1
Rice
2
Miami, Oh
3
Syracuse
4
Maryland
5
North Texas
6
Idaho
7
Toledo
8
Ball St
9
Florida St
10
San Diego St
11
UAB
12
West Virginia
13
Georgia
14
WKU
15
Auburn

My Top 30 Countdown concludes today with #1 Oklahoma, which is a surprise to many across the country. Click on the link (on the homepage) to download both magazine pages to get my reasons why they are #1. Remember those magazine pages are available for only 24 hours for you to download.

Only 78 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE FIRST COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME!!