Phil Steele Has Oregon Ranked #11, Behind USC & Stanford!

[SuperDuck]

Phil Steele's biggest fault is over reliance in numbers and returning players.

He rarely accounts for new players (how could he, really) or coaching. That second point alone is why USC won't sniff anything remotely close to #3 come January.

Just curious, how do you know he doesn't account for new players? Maybe he takes class rankings or player rankings into consideration.

I've heard him give radio interviews with Bill King. He always admits that his projections are limited by the unknown impact of new players. Not to mention that his analysis is distributed months before the season to optimize magazine sales. Basically, he's in the business of selling magazines, not making accurate projections.

Actually, I saw him on ESPN last week and he said he releases 3 projections per year. I remember he said before spring and after spring, but not the last one.

[OregonFan4Life]

Hard to argue against Pellum's defense...........we were in the National Championship. It wasn't pretty, but in the end who could say it wasn't effective?

Pellum's defense got jacked in the NC game though, primarily with OSU running the same couple of plays over and over and over. I do have serious questions about his ability to adjust to an in-game situation.

I hear you, we have good reason to doubt a 1st year DC who had his best player out and arguably the weakest LB core in the Pac-12 going against arguably the best offensive coaching mind in college football with one of the best offensive lines in the country and a great RB. We should also ignore the previous game where his defense (still without his best player) held the #1 draft pick with a loaded offense to 20 points with 7 second half points.