Phil Steele, My Hero

I perpetually look forward to buying Phil Steele's college football preview during the summer.  I normally read it on the shitter or on a flight.  This year it was both.

I can always count of Phil's no-bullshit assessment of the talent and accompanying coaching staff.  I love that Steele smugly kept his high school linebacker ranking next to Allen Bradford's name while he was in the backfield at RB for USC.  Guess who had the most tackles for the Seahawks in their last preseason game.  AB.  I love his in-depth schedule analysis too, which it appears pollsters see as completely irrelevant.

But the reason I feel the need to bring his genius to your attention is that he just released his underrated/overrated predictions for this season.  Steele has USC listed as the most underrated team in the country.  He cites the Trojans as being deeper than last year and benefiting from a much easier schedule without playing Oregon & Washington and getting Stanford & UCLA at the Coliseum.  He mentions the pressure on the coaching staff and unknown QB production as concerns, but he has USC favored in 11 games with the other 2 as coin flips.  He even calls USC a dark-horse national contender. (Excuse my Broner)

On the flipside, Steele has UCLA as the 3rd-most overrated team in the country.  The Bruins are only returning 12 starters and have one of the toughest schedules in the Pac-12.  As if back-to-back road trips to Stanford & Oregon isn't bad enough, UCLA has to travel to Lincoln, Nebraska to play the Cornhuskers as well.

November 30th at the Coliseum is going to be fun.