moral victory time if I read your post correctly.

His mags aren’t about big and glossy. They are probably one of the more difficult to read previews since he’s such a sports wonk, if that’s a term. And I’ve now heard the guy interviewed a couple times, and he’s really pretty impressive. So, while I understand the inclination to cavalierly ask about such results, I’m not any less impressed by Steele.

In answer to your question, I haven’t crunched any numbers, but I suspect his predictions have done better than most. As for UCLA, he predicted we’d be 7th in 2006, which might have been close to right had we not beaten SC; and he predicted we’d be tied for 2nd in the Pac-10 in 2007, which we might have been not for some injuries and coaching limitations (and almost were anyway).

Finally, I respectfully disagree that we “have plenty of the necessary tools” or that we’re one break away from winning “at least 8,” particularly with the upcoming schedule. 6 wins, I’m happy. Anything more, I’m differing levels of thrilled.

And even if it’s Olson, as we assume, I’d put a rather large sum for the proposition that he won’t finish the season. I’ll put the over/under for quarterbacks who start a game for UCLA this season at 3, and maybe take the over.

I’m not making excuses; I’m saying his predictions have been reasonably close. And that’s hard to do when you’ve had a train wreck for a head coach to account for.

Empirically, I don’t know if Steele is “wrong more than half the time” or not, though I suspect you don’t either. And I also doubt you know how he sounds (he a stat machine, not so much a talking head), or anything at all. Listen, I’m sorry that you have such a knee jerk reaction to these sort of people. In any case, I’ve given you my opinion that he’s perhaps the best at his trade, and you are free to disagree.

I agree that coaching matters a lot, and suspect we will do somewhat better than Steele predicts, though you shouldn’t forget the brutal schedule. In fact, that’s where I think Steele got it wrong last year; he picked us for T-2nd without discounting enough for the Dorrell factor. But, if you go straight by talent, Steele picks us around the middle. I won’t give up all his data, but here are his conference position rankings without identifying which go where (6, 5, 6, 9, 4, 5, 7, 1, 6) (I’ve already given up the 7, 9 and 1). Thus, for this year, I think he’s understating the coaching effect, but we’re mostly arguing around the margins. Again, I’d be thrilled with, say, 8 wins. I wouldn’t be the least surprised, however, if we got less.

BH took over a program from a lousy coach that had no direction. So is Neu.
BH then had to install his philosophy, process, etc. So is Neu.
BH then had to get the players to buy into it. So is Neu.
BH went something like 11-20 his first year, so it’s not unreasonable to expect Neu&Co. to make a lot of progress with the program and still only win 6 games.

Just my opinion.

I frankly hadn’t paid any attention to Steele’s “pick” service. I’m not a big fan of those either. I’m just talking about his preview guides, which I think are great. No idea about his picking track record. And, again, from hearing him talk, he comes off as much more knowledgeable, and less scammertastic; though I don’t have any basis to comment on that part of his business. And, don’t worry, I wasn’t taking it personally. I don’t have Steele stock, or Steele living in my attic. :)

how well he picks teams in the pre-season to finish within their league is a lot different than how well he picks teams against the spread and over/unders.

As some folks have already said, I think we will see a tangible difference in how the team plays, prepares and handles itself.

That all said, and I’m not defending Steele, I still wouldn’t be surprise to see this team around 6th in the Pac-10. Maybe I slot them at 4th or 5th, but 6th is certainly possible.

Let’s put it this way, the 6th place team in the Pac-10, in every year from 2002 to 2007, has had 4 conference wins. Every year. You get 5 wins, you get something higher, usually a notch or two higher since there are usually a few teams tied for 4th or 5th (which equates to 6th). If you leave out tie-breakers, UCLA was 6th in 2002-2004. (Note, the numbers change a tic in 2006 when they added the 9th conference game.)

So, where does UCLA get it’s 5 conference wins this year?

Arizona- win
WSU- win
at Oregon- loss
Stanford- win
at Cal- loss
OSU- win
at Wash- toss-up
at ASU- loss
USC – toss-up, but probably, sorry to say, loss

Of course, as you say, we’ll probably win some we should loss, and visa versa.

Outside of the Pac-10, we have Tenn, at BYU and Fresno State. Let’s say we win 2 of 3, being charitable. That gives us 6 wins.

Agreed, cool name.

Would you believe I was an extra in the final scene?

Nicholson, Cannon, Beckham, Agnew. It works.

And you’re absolutely right about the O-Line. That’s where games are won and lost. Any smart football coach would rather have 5 great linemen with 5 average skill players (QB, RB, FB, WR x2) than the other way around.