Oh Baby, It's here! (Part 1)

328 pages of college football goodness. That's right folks, Phil Steele's College Football 2006 Preview. Today we bring you some overall notes about Navy found in the magazine, while over the weekend we will be providing information on the full Phil Steele Preview of Navy. If you have any questions regarding any teams or players found in the magazine, feel free to ask, but I'd also suggest picking up this great resource for only 8.99!

Top Players by Position:

• Amazingly, Adam Ballard is not listed as one of the Top 25 fullbacks. Rutgers FB Brian leonard gets the nod as the Numero Uno FB in the land.
• Rob Caldwell was named the 41st Best Outside Linebacker in the country. There was no mention of him or any other Navy player on the All-American lists.
• Overall, Army had more players named to Top Positions then Navy, who only had 1 (Caldwell) on any of the lists.

Top Units

• Navy’s Running Back unit was named the 13th best in the country by Phil, who said that it was “the finest set of Navy RB’s I had ever seen. Interestingly enough, Navy finished ahead of Rutgers (16th), Notre Dame (18th), Maryland (20th), and West Virginia (22nd) in this category.
• Navy’s Linebacker Core was named the 27th best in the country, just ahead of Auburn and Alabama.

Navy Named 30th in Preseason Top 40!

• What Phil had to say: “Paul Johnson is doing a tremendous job here and this looks like his best tea yet. Last year they had just 5 returning starters and still blew out Colorado State in a bowl. This year they have 16 returning starters.” Navy was ranked higher then the following (in descending order): Penn State, TCU, Houston, Arizona, Michigan State, Alabama, Fresno State, Maryland, Pittsburgh, and Hawaii. Our only opponent higher then us is Notre dame (7).

Power Poll

• Navy is ranked 40th in Phil's Power Poll. This poll measurs "only the streagth of the team and does not worry about who they play." Our opponents are as followed: Notre dame (5), Tulsa (45), Rutgers (58), Stanford (63), Connecticut (67), Air Force (72), East Carolina (84), Army (93), East. Michigan (97), Duke (107), Temple (118).
• It's interesting to note that the highest Sun Belt team is Louisiana Lft. (95), making the Sun belt clearly the worst conference.

Schedule

• Navy had the 103rd toughest schedule in '05. Navy's opponents for '06 had a combined record of 60-76(%44.1) in '05, and Navy will play the 91st toughest schedule of 119 teams this year.

Projected Stats

• Phil projects Navy to lead the country in rushing AGAIN with 325 ypg. Navy is projected at having the dead last pass offense in I-A with105 ypg (c'mon, somebody has to be worse then that, Temple anyone?).
• Notre Dame is projected as having the 3rd best pass offense, 4th best scoring offense, and 3rd best total offense.
• Air Force is projected to have the 5th best rush offense. Duke is said to have the 3rd worst scoring offense, and Temple the worst scoring offense.
• East Carolina has the 2nd worst rush defense (in front of the lowly Buffalo Bulls) and Stanford has the 5th worst pass defense.

Random Props

• Navy was named one of five non-BCS teams that "could surprise" next year. The others were Boise St., Utah, Houtson, and UTEP. Phil seems to like Houston for some reason.
• Navy named to play San Diego State in the Poinsettia Bowl. This of course came before news of Meineke-Gate, in which Phil has Boston College and West Virginia going at it.
• Independents were named the Second Easiest Conference ahead of only the lowly Sun belt. You can thank 0-11 Temple for that.

Notes on the Independents

• Phil ranks them (in order) Notre Dame, Navy, Army, Temple, as 99% of the country does.
• Navy players on 1st team Offense: RB Adam Ballard, G Zach Gallion.
• Navy players on 1st team Defense: LB Rob Caldwell, CB Keenan Little, KR Karlos Whittaker (no longer on the team)
• Navy players on 2nd team Offense: QB Brian Hampton, RB Reggie Campbell, WR Jason Tomlinson, G Antron Harper, T Matt Pritchett.
• Navy players on 2nd Ream Defense: DL John Chan, DL Larry Cylc, LB David Mahoney, LB Tyler Tidwell, FS DuJuan Price, K Joey Bullen, PR Jason Tomlinson.