Phil Steele might have ruffled a bunch of feathers around the college football world, but he’d likely be a welcome guest around almost any dinner table in Utah.
Steele, the publisher of a popular college football and NFL preview guide, gave love to the two prominent college football programs of the Beehive State. Steel ranked the U football team No. 14 in his 2008 Preseason Top 25 Poll that came out on Tuesday and ranked Utah’s southern rival BYU No. 17. Those two rankings, however, are likely not the only two judgments that raised eyebrows when the preseason rankings were released.
Steele ranked Georgia No. 9. Which is on many people’s short list of national championship contenders-including ESPN’s Mark Schlabach’s top 25 and Uwire’s top 10 poll. Other notable ranking disparities include Texas (Steele has them debuting at No. 15, ESPN at No. 8), Tennessee (No. 15 ESPN, No. 23 Steele) and South Florida, which Steel gave a No. 8 preseason ranking, while ESPN left it out of the top 25 altogether.
Steele, whose preseason magazine can be found on news racks nationwide, is also featuring the Mountain West Conference on his Website this week. Steele previewed BYU Tuesday and will feature Utah’s schedule and a poll Wednesday at www.philsteele.com. Utah and BYU were the only two teams outside of the six Bowl Conference Championship conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 10, SEC) to be selected for Steele’s preseason poll.
Although Steele gave the Utes a high ranking in his preseason poll, he ranked the difficulty of Utah’s schedule as No. 99 out of a possible 120 Division-I schools. Utah plays host to its normal gauntlet of MWC opponents and also plays host to a non-conference schedule that includes Oregon State and Weber State. Utah’s non-conference road schedule includes games against Michigan and Utah State.
The Utes will start their campaign for a sixth-straight bowl appearance and eighth-straight bowl victory when they open the season Aug 30 at the Big House in Ann Arbor, Mich., against the Michigan Wolverines.
Sakoda gets preseason national attention
Ute place kicker and punter “Sweet” Louie Sakoda as one of five punters that have earned a spot on the national Ray Guy Preseason Watch List. The Ray Guy Award is given to the nation’s best punter at the end of the season. Sakoda has already been on the watch list twice. He averaged 44.3 yards-per-punt last season and placed more than 33 percent of his punts inside the 20-yard line last year.
Last season, the Associated Press named the U punter a second-team All-American. Sakoda is also a two-time MWC Special Teams Player of the Year and was simultaneously named to the all-MWC team as both a punter and place kicker in 2007. Steele also named Sakoda his preseason All-American punter for 2008.