One of the best days of each sports year arrived for me last week: I bought the annual Phil Steele’s College Football Preview.
Of the myriad preseason football magazines, the idiosyncratic Phil Steele preview is easily my favorite.
Where to start? From Alabama to New Mexico State, I relish the massive amount of information, all jammed onto two pages per team in impossibly small type, that is provided on each FBS program.
I love that if I want to know who is projected to be the third-string, left offensive guard for San Jose State in 2022, I can flip to page 246 and see that it is Jelani Newman, a 6-foot-4, 290-pound sophomore.
My favorite part of the “Phil Steele experience” is the oddball abbreviations that one must master to decipher his team breakdowns. In the parlance of the Steele preview, a lavishly praised recruit is a “VHT” — very highly touted.
A high-tempo offense is a “HUNH” — hurry-up, no-huddle.
Meanwhile, a quarterback with a prior career start has a “GUB” — a game under their belt.
Alas, during the Mark Stoops-era ascension in Kentucky’s football fortunes, one other consistent dynamic has emerged courtesy of the Phil Steele preview: After a generally pessimistic preseason outlook for the football Wildcats is presented by Steele, UK has subsequently tended to exceed the gloomy predictions with its play on the field.
Judging from the UK football message boards and my Twitter timeline, Wildcats backers are again unhappy with Steele’s projections for UK in 2022.
Steele has predicted Kentucky to finish No. 4 in the SEC East. He has the Wildcats No. 35 in his national preseason Top 40. That leaves UK two spots behind No. 33 Louisville — a team the Wildcats have outscored 153-44 in the last three battles for the Governor’s Cup.
Judging by the track record, however, the Big Blue Nation should likely be encouraged, not provoked, by a relatively negative Phil Steele preseason projection for the Wildcats.
2016
Phil Steele prediction: Picked UK to finish fifth in the SEC East and said the Cats were favored to win five games.
Kentucky’s reality: Kentucky won seven times (7-6) and finished in a three-way tie for second in the SEC East.
2017
Phil Steele prediction: Picked the Wildcats to tie for fourth in the SEC East.
Kentucky’s reality: Again won seven games (7-6) and finished in a two-way tie for third in the SEC East.
2018
Phil Steele prediction: Picked the Wildcats fifth in the SEC East and projected that UK would only be favored in four of its 12 regular-season games.
Kentucky’s reality: For the first time in 41 years, Kentucky won 10 games (10-3) and finished tied for second with Florida in the SEC East.
2019
Phil Steele’s prediction: Tabbed UK sixth in the SEC East, but he projected Kentucky could be favored in as many as seven games.
Kentucky’s reality: Stoops and troops tied for fourth in the SEC East and finished with an 8-5 record.
2020
Phil Steele’s prediction: Picked Kentucky fourth in the SEC East but had UK No. 21 in his preseason “power poll.”
Kentucky’s reality: Finished fourth in the SEC East and with a 5-6 record in a season in which the coronavirus pandemic led to the Southeastern Conference instituting a 10-game, all-league-opponents regular season. (Against a normal schedule that included non-conference foes, it seems likely UK would have gone 9-4).
2021
Phil Steele’s prediction: Picked Kentucky third in the SEC East and speculated UK would be favored to win in eight of its regular-season games.
Kentucky’s reality: UK finished second in the SEC East behind eventual national champion Georgia. For the second time in four seasons, the Big Blue won 10 games (10-3).
It seems the nine different sets of power ratings, all based on different factors, that Steele boasts of applying to teams to make his predictions have had a bit of a blind spot where Kentucky is concerned over the past six seasons.
To his credit, Steele acknowledges that in the Kentucky synopsis in his 2022 preview magazine. “Stoops almost always outperforms my expectations (sign of a very good coach),” he writes.
Phil Steele, in fairness, is hardly the only one who has undersold Kentucky in his preseason prognostications over the past six seasons. In my own case since 2016, UK has won one more game than I predicted four times (2016, 2017, 2018 and 2021); the Cats matched the win total I had predicted once (2019); and UK came in two victories below my preseason projection once (2020).
Bottom line: Based on recent Kentucky football history, UK backers should be bullish on the fact Phil Steele’s College Football Preview is relatively bearish on the Cats in 2022.
