Not defending the rankings at all...but what I understand is he puts them in order of where he thinks they will finish the season...not a true "preseason" ranking.

A few things that may be evidence that his "preseason poll" is an end of season "prediction"

Georgia is at #9 but everyone has them starting #1 because he feels they will lose a game putting them there end of season. He is not playing the game of someone starting at #1 and staying there, he is playing the game of "I am making my calls now, mark them down."

Probably thinks that BYU will lose one more game than Utah. 11-1 season for Utah and 10-2 season for BYU, thus the high rankings still but Utah ahead of BYU.

Also worth mentioning is that Michigan is not ranked by him. He must feel that with Rodriguez and crew being all new staff there it a rebuilding year with a new offense to implement and a big learning curve.

South Carolina is ranked but last year had a 6-6 record. Must think that they are going to do some stuff in the SEC...no one else is talking of South Carolina or has them ranked...or he is just an SEC homer having 6 teams from that conference ranked.

Personally, I don't understand the philosophy of pre-season rankings. In fact, I don't agree with them at all. They are a wild crapshoot that adversely affect the ENTIRE season.

Getting off the soapbox now, how can you make a pre-season poll that doesn't attempt to predict the final standings? Isn't that kind of the purpose? If you're saying someone is pre-season #1, then you should be predicting that they'll finish the season #1. Otherwise, you're just saying they have the potential to be #1, and in my opinion every team has that potential (except for maybe Utah State).

Just so everyone knows, when the "real" preseason polls (I also agree that they are really dumb and need to be done away with) come out those who make the preseason polls are supposed to rank the teams where they believe they will end up at the END of the season. That is why it is a prediction, at least that is what I read in Stewart Mandell's book about CF and polls. He said a lot of people misunderstand them even those who are ranking the teams, it is where you think they will end up at the end of the season. so if Phil Steele is following that protocol he is really in left field with some of his predictions. Interestingly, there is no contact info (email) on his website, only for the webmaster. I think he realizes he would get a lot of hate mail, especially this year.

Just to add some balance to these preseason polls take a look at Athlon's rankings:

1. Florida
2. Ohio State
3. Oklahoma
4. USC
5. Georga
6. Missouri
7. W. Virgina
8. Auburn
9. LSU
10. Clemson
14. BYU
28. Michigan
33. Utah

Phil Steele is nuts! Utah is not going to finish ahead of BYU this year. Must be smoking something!

We won the MWC last year, and return 10 of 11 on the leading offense in the conference, and he is listing the REDS ahead of BYU. Ridiculous. Max Hall was good last year, and will be better this year. BJ was good how many years ago, and is prone to injury?