Ran out at lunch and grabbed 4 of these rags.

Phil Steele's is the best by far. Any of you CFB fans who've never checked it out, pick one up. It's written for hardcore fans and gamblers and is so packed with info he uses a system of abbreviations to fit it all in.

Grabbed Lindy's and Athlon as well. Those are usually pretty weak but I have to feed the CFB jones somehow.

Quick perusal saw OU at #1 in Athlon and Steele's, with Notre Dame #1 by Lindy's.

Will be devouring these tonight. If anyone else picks them up and has thoughts or just general thoughts on CFB 2006, chime in.......

Take this advice as gospel. He is 100% correct.

I picked up Athlons ACC Annual,

Sporting News SEC guide,

and Pro Football Weekly's annual


Lots of good info in all. I really like PFW's layout.

I also like how Lindy's and Athlon present the info.

I need to see if I can find some from Steele.

Thanks for the heads up.

http://www.collegefootballnews.com is a great website too.


I haven't found much to argue with.

It scares me that I picked Clemson to win the Atlantic division and maybe the ACC before I read Athlon who also picked the tigers. Bowden + Clemsons track record of not living up to expectations.

The other one I'm close on is the SEC west. Auburn also has a history of not living up even though they were playing best at the end of the year last season and should have played in the championship game. They look amazing and might be the most healthy, but Wow, WOW does LSU have a talented team. If they can hold it toegther in the backfield, they could be really good their schedule just doesn't look all that appealing for success.

I guess Sanchez is back now at USC. Athlon has OU first ND second USC third and TOSU fourth, but I think those could be interchangeable.

Florida is 5th but I just don't know. The SEC East is a crapshoot. Florida is the clear option to win but that offense still sucks ass against a talented fast defense (see last seasons alabama game) and they will see that at Auburn and from LSU. Georgia will be tough, but UF owns the dawgs even with UGA has a better team. Tennessee is not on the radar whatsoever. I think South Carolina could steal some wins against anybody but they still aren't where Spurrier wants them to be.

Lindys and Athlon are complete crap, Steele is the only worth the paper it's printed on.

Season should be interesting, Ohio State has no D, USC will stumble, possibly mightily, ND still has no D, Penn St. lost everyone. I think it's about as wide open as it can get, LSU is a team to watch out for.

Steele's Top 10
OU
Auburn
Louisville
USC
Texas
Miami
Notre Dame
Ohio St
Va Tech
Fla St

Athlon Top 10
OU
Notre Dame
USC
Ohio St
Florida
West Va
Texas
Cal
Auburn
Louisville

Lindy's Top 10
Notre Dame
Ohio St
West Va
Texas
Florida
USC
OU
Auburn
Cal
LSU

I haven't picked up any of those yet. I usually wait til early August. Phil Steele is tha man, no doubt. Lindy's is always good too. Those magazines help me pay rent, sooo fucking valuable.

I haven't picked up any CFB ones yet, but I did pick up Pro Football Weekly's NFL Preview Mag and it's outstanding. Very well researched.

Couple things that have surprised me.

I'm surprised to see OU ranked #1, especially in PS. We've discussed this some already but it seems like they are putting a lot of faith in the new OL coach improving the play of the line and the lesser experienced guys continuing to improve. Their OL must be better than I remember from last year.

Also was surprised to see PS list Arkansas as his #2 team in the SEC West. Are they really that talented?

I also thought it was interesting that PS didn't have WVU in his top 10 but the others had them at #3 and #6. I know PS does his rankings a little differently but still interesting.

PS isn't drinking the Spread offense kool aide. They aren't that good. But they might destroy that division. Georgia made them look amazing for a quarter, and then kicked their ass for the other 3 behind DJ shockley's leadership and only lost on a fluke fake punt and ran out of time. Georgia lost that game on poor first quarter execution by the defense, consequently the same issue they had with another spread team Florida not that they aren't owned by the gators anyhow. PS is simply going to make them earn it. I don't have a problem with that.

I think the OU thing is based on Peterson returning to prominance a good year of experience last year with Bomar and a solid defense and the fact that the SEC powers will beat up on each other. ND and Ohio State should be powerhouses. I'm expecting USC to slide just a bit.

No way I put ND at #1 until their pass defense (or D in general) does something impressive. They have to earn that ranking this year.

no kidding. i wouldn't be at all surprised if they were #1 in the first AP poll, though. ND gets so much hype it's sickening. Brady Quinn will be have the hype machine behind him for the Heisman, as well.

What? Penn State lost alot on both the offensive and defensive lines, but look at all the returning linebackers and running backs and wide outs and defensive backs.

PSU will give ND a run.

I bought Steele's pub and it's really good stuff - incredibly detailed, maybe even too much so. While I certainly appreciate all the extra info, I could do without some of the things he says about how some of these teams were like, 2-3-4 years ago. It's nice to get some background, but not this much. Probably the best mag of its kind, but I think he could cut out some of this stuff and not lose anything.

The more I read about Oklahoma the more I think they're going to either win the Big 12 or come very, very close. They're going to have the best defense in the NCAA.

they do have a very good defense but clearly most of those goals hinge on the RRS.

despite being a bit surprised at how highly OU is regarded, and with an admitted bias, i still think Texas wins that game. defensively it will be about a wash i think, but offensively i think UT has the edge, assuming either Snead or McCoy can manage the game semi-effectively.

my biggest fear is that Greg Davis retreats to his pussified ways and comes in with a conservative gameplan, now that he doesn't have VYs experience. i think the key to beating OU is an aggressive offensive gameplan.

They're all wrong. USC is winning it all(of course I'm biased). My prediction since after the Rose Bowl has been TOSU vs Florida.

Is this who he thinks the top ten teams are or how he thinks they'll finish the season?

Because, Louisville?? Come on.

It's basically how he thinks teams will finish. He factors heavily into his rankings the difficulty of each teams schedule. So, a team that may be #10 overall from a "best team" perspective that has a favorable schedule will be ranked higher.

The first day of the year we have the Pac 10-SEC Challenge:

Septmber 2:

Washington State v. Auburn (espn2)

Southern Cal v. Arkansas (espn)

California v. Tenn. (espn)