Phil Steele is bullish on both Kentucky and a college football season this fall
If there is one person who is bullish on the fact we will indeed have college football this fall, it’s the man dedicated to putting out the most comprehensive, stats-packed, information-filled preview you can find anywhere on a printed page.
“I absolutely do,” Phil Steele said Friday when I asked him if he thought we were going to get a 2020 college football season. “I think that things are going to get turned around and we’re going to be talking about a lot of football in the month of August. I think we play football this year, and I think we play it in the fall.”
If we do, as always, Steele’s 2020 College Football Preview is a must-read. The coronavirus pandemic pushed the publication deadline back from late May to July 8, but it’s still everything you could possibly want to know squeezed into a 350-page publication. Pre-order shipments started Wednesday. At first, because of the pandemic, he was only going to sell through his website, philsteele.com. Then Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million offered an exclusive deal to get the magazine on the shelves. It should be in those stores July 24.
“The one main thing it did, it delayed it. Back in March the state of Ohio got shut down, so I was basically in the office working by myself,” said Steele, who lives in the Cleveland area. “You couldn’t have employees out and about, so the staff was on unemployment and I was just in the office toiling away for a couple of months. And then the staff was able to come back, we hit it full force.”
Steele was still able to talk to about 110 coaches across the country for about an hour each to go over their rosters. That includes Kentucky, hoping to stretch its bowl streak to five straight seasons under Mark Stoops.
How does Steele rate the job Stoops has done at UK?
“I’m going to say phenomenal job,” Steele said. “I love the fact Kentucky cut him some slack early on, three straight losing seasons to start off, and let him build this team the right way. And he has built it the right way.
“You look at last year. Last year looked like an obvious rebuilding year for Kentucky, coming off the season of a lifetime for UK. And last year only four returning starters on offense, four on defense. They lose their starting quarterback. They have to play a wide receiver at QB. Eight wins at the end of the season. Phenomenal job.”
Steele is most impressed with what Stoops, a former defensive coordinator, has down with the Wildcats’ defense.
“This defense, that looks like an SEC defense,” he said. “I can take you back 20 years when Kentucky was a little smaller up front, or not as fast up front. These guys are all SEC-caliber players in that front seven. That secondary got rebuilt in a hurry. They lost a lot of players to the NFL two yeas ago. Last year they came back in and played well. Now they’ve got a lot of folks with starting experience in that unit. This is a defense I’m very excited about.”
Steele also loves the job Scott Satterfield did in his first year at Louisville, turning the “dumpster fire” that was 2018 to an 8-5 finish in 2019. “You’ve got to figure coaches make improvement in their second year. So they’re going to make some noise in the (ACC) Atlantic.”
Back to the SEC, Steele likes Georgia and Florida at the top, with Tennessee and Kentucky close behind. “I think all four of those are capable of winning the East,” he said.
Alabama is his pick in the West, but his surprise team — not just for the SEC, but nationally — is Texas A&M. Steele likes the depth Jimbo Fisher is building in his third year in College Station. Plus, after playing three No. 1-ranked teams a year ago in Clemson, Alabama and LSU, the Aggies get a bit easier schedule this time around.
“They’ve got 17 returning starters coming back,” Steele said. “Going over the team, I love the way he’s building it. You go down the third team on most of these positions, he’s got talented guys that are Jimbo type of guys.”
Steele is a college football type of guy, through and through. This year marks his 26th consecutive yearbook. Does he enjoy putting the newest one together as much as the first?
“I do,” he said. “And I think talking to the coaches really gets me pumped up, as well. You might be going, ‘Why am I putting in these long hours?’ but then the coaches, chatting with them for an hour, it shows you the respect the magazine has gained throughout the year. So that keeps me fired up during the offseason.”
This story was originally published July 18, 2020 at 1:28 PM.
