On Texas Football: Phil Steele says Longhorns belong atop the Big 12
On the latest video episode of On Texas Football, Inside Texas’ Bobby Burton talks with football magazine publisher Phil Steele about his publication’s ranking of the Longhorns atop its Big 12 Conference preseason poll and other things concerning Texas football.
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Steele, publisher of Phil Steele College Football Preseason Magazine, is one of the great prognosticators of college football, Burton said.
“He really does it from a data standpoint, goes deeper than just about anybody I know across the country,” Burton said. “I daresay he does the deepest dive. I think everybody that follows college football knows Phil.”
Steele said his computer projections that places the Longhorns atop the Big 12 came down to talent.
“To be quite honest with you the Big 12 is generally a conference up in the air top to bottom – you know, who’s at the bottom and who’s at the top?” Steele explained. “I looked at Texas’ schedule and I said the everybody’s gonna be gunning for them this year, I don’t want to pick Texas No. 1 to be flat out honest.
“Of the top six teams in the Big 12 Texas is the only one that plays each of the other five. The Big 12 schedule maker didn’t do them any favors. But it comes down to talent.”
Steele said that if readers look on page 138 of his magazine at the publication’s Big 12 rankings, he has Texas on the top or tied for the top at every position.
“And quite honestly I don’t do those rankings – I do the individual units and put them in my computer and then just have the computer rank them,” Steele said. “And amazingly Texas came out on top and it was all independent.
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“There were some losses but this is a veteran team overall with 10 starters back on offense, six on defense. Just the pure talent has the computer picking Texas to win the Big 12 this year. If you look at the road games (in conference) and they’re not easy. Playing at Baylor is not easy, TCU is not easy, and Iowa State is not easy. And then Houston is all pumped up to play Texas but I still think they have the talent to get it done.”
Burton commented that Steele’s magazine computer projection has Texas scoring 39.1 points per game on offense while giving up 21.7 points on defense. Both of those numbers ranked on top of the league’s projections.
Steele added that he likes where Texas is heading in coach Steve Sarkisian’s third campaign on the 40 Acres and explained that the third year under a coach is usually when a team begins to crest.
“I think the way Sarkisian has accumulated the talent (bodes well),” Steele said. “Generally, when coaches come in, they hit their stride in the third year because now they’ve got three recruiting classes of their players. You’ve got the type of players you want, you got players that fit your systems. Everybody knows the offense extremely well. And I just love the way Sarkisian is building this team. I mean, you just look at the talent they have and see that Texas can go toe to toe with anyone they play.”
Go check out the video in its entirety for more info and opinions from Steele.
