The Lions' Pride

This is because Phil Steele is a hack. Honestly, I'm not just trying to blow this off, and certainly it says something about our team, but clearly it means nothing in the end like you said. Post-season ranking and awards are all that matter.

In reality, Phil's preseason predictions are essentially extended 2011 post season awards. It's mostly based on: 1) last year's performance, 2) mere speculation about this year's performance, and 3) recruiting-type rankings and projections of players who have not played much at this level.

You show me one football coach, player or guru who thinks Phil Steele's opinion matters, and I'll show you a liar.

Phil Steele usually gives us a lot of love, but we usually under perform. Maybe this year the opposite will be true. But the fact that he is basically predicting Ohio to beat us is head scratching.

Redd should be team 1 Brown team 2 Stank team 4 Hill team 1

I can see the following on here by the end of the year.

Donovan Smith
Massaro
Stank
Stephon Morris
Willis

He has been injured and is returning from an injury. That is the reason. A healthy Mauti is first or second.

Morris should've made at least 4th team and Mauti at least second (would be first if he wasn't hurt).

Steele is the best out there for preseason, but it's such an inexact science.

Phil Steele is one of the best in the biz, but I think he was always more pro-Paterno than pro-PSU.

IMO, Redd, Hill, Fera, and Hodges all have cases to be first team all-conference.

I like Steele, and find his stuff entertaining to read, but there's no point in putting any stock into these sort of things. Much like recruiting and drafting it's a mostly a crapshoot. No need getting worked up about it.

Well what else is he supposed to do? It's a giant guessing game. All anybody does is try to get people to read their stuff and make guesses that are no more accurate than others. Stop being a blind homer.

The reason I like these mags is simple they give you info on all the teams so you can read up and get an idea how they will look and players to watch out for.

It's fun.

Except Steele's publications are targeted at bettors, so he has more incentive to get things right than the average preseason mag that is just filled with pictures and fluff articles. But as philafan said, the thing I like about Steele is the sheer amount of information his magazine includes on every team. His value is as an encyclopedia.

It is really hard to project the Penn State kids. It is going to be a new look offense and defense. PSU has three or four kids that on paper look to be above average players (Redd, Hodges, Hill and Mauti). PSU looks like they have some other talented kids, but most have question marks (lack of experience, have not been consistent, have not stayed healthy). Case in point - Justin Brown. Brown came in as a highly recruited player and on paper and in person, looks like he should be an All Big Ten player. He has yet to put it all together. He will have a great game, but follow it up with two substandard games. However, this year, he looks to be the man in a new offense where he could be seeing a lot more passes. It is just hard to project what kind of player he will be right now. I think Brown will have a great season, but I can see why the "experts" would have doubts.