Wait until Phil Steele's College Football Preview comes out. Year after year he is the most accurate in his predictions. Last year he had us as his #2 "darkhorse" pick to win the national championship.
Phil Steele is pretty solid, if I'm not mistaken he picked Ohio St. the year before as a darkhorse for the national championship. He's not stupid, he at least takes the teams schedule into consideration, not like the jackasses that picked Auburn last year. I know everybody here loves to dis Auburn but getting a team like USC for your first game of the year is no picnic, I don't care if it's at home or not, it's real easy to blow a few assignments the first game of the year.....then everybody's got the "brook trout" look on the sidelines and presto!......your season is over before it started......remember how bad we looked at VaTech two years ago? I prefer a few warm-up matches if possible. A Pac-10 also-ran like Oregon St. should do nicely! :grin:
Yes, Phil Steele did list LSU as a darkhorse NC pick in 2003 (along with Pitt as his top two). He uses selected stats---returning starters, lettermen, schedule, etc.---and some coincidences (similar to the 5 vs. 11 seed "upset" that happens each year in the NCAA Tourney--not a definite rule, but it keeps on happening) to make his educated guesses. One is that a number of recent Nat'l Champs had fairly mediocre seasons the year before--LSU was 8-5 and Ohio St. was 7-5 in 2002, if I'm not mistaken. Remember, these are darkhorse picks, not his projected #1. If I remember, I think he picked Ohio St to repeat last year and had picked Tennessee to win in 2002. Hell, he should stick to the darkhorse picks!
Stopped by the nearest bookstore on the way home yesterday and the only mag they had was the Big XII version Sporting News. TSN has LSU at #4, by the way, with Georgia #1.
TSN is a complete joke. I haven't read the magazine but I believe they put our OL at #6 in the country and like one of the top ones in the SEC....huh? I love Georgia and I think we will win the East but I still don't see us going undefeated with such a bad OL. It's the typical pre-season magazines that look straight at returning men without any research.
An Anthlon and Lindy's both ranked OU's O-line as one of the tops in the country, did anyone pay attention to what they did last season?
