Happy Thursday Cougs, as we hope all is well for you and yours as we cruise towards another weekend here in the great NW.
So Phil Steele is getting ready to ship his ultra-deep annual college football magazine! Per his website at philsteele.com, the magazines are boxed and ready to ship, and will start showing up on store shelves next week.
And if you are in the northwest, this should be the cover you will see if you hit Barnes-n-Noble, Target, etc:
The great thing about Steele's annual magazines is that they are absolutely packed with info (just as the cover states!). It might be looked at as a little too much at times, and it can seem a little overwhelming. But when you really want to dig in and check out a team, it gives you pretty much everything you need for a summer preview. Obviously things are fluid with college football teams and changes can happen quickly, especially once August starts and fall camp begins. Injuries, players quitting, true frosh or JC's emerging, etc, can sometimes render the preseason depth charts as completely off the mark by September. But still, Steele's mag is something I always look forward to and even in today's Internet age of I WANT IT ALL AND I WANT IT NOW, it's a still a great resource to have by your side for college football nerds like me.
Speaking of Phil Steele, he released a list of returning letter winners for 2013. Above and beyond just looking at returning starters or even just the two-deeps, instead Steele takes things a step further and breaks down the numbers of players who actually are coming back this season who won a varsity letter last year. Let's take a look and see how it breaks down for the Pac-12…
1) Colorado – 61 letter winners back, just 13 lost from 2012. 82.43% of letter winners returning in 2013.
2) UW – 58 letter winners back, 16 lost from 2012. 78.38% of letter winners returning in 2013.
3) Oregon State – 60 letter winners back (actually 2nd in all the Pac-12), but lost 19 from 2012. 75.95% of letter winners returning in 2013.
4) Stanford – 59 letter winners back, 19 lost from 2012. 75.64% of letter winners returning in 2013.
5) Arizona – 51 letter winners back, 18 lost from 2012. 73.91% of letter winners returning in 2013.
6) Washington State – 43 letter winners back, 16 lost from 2012. 72.88% of letter winners returning in 2013.
7) Oregon – 52 letter winners back, 20 lost from 2012. 72.22% of letter winners returning in 2013.
8) USC – 57 letter winners back, 24 lost from 2012. 70.37% of letter winners returning in 2013.
9) UCLA – 51 letter winners back, 22 lost from 2012. 69.86% of letter winners returning in 2013.
10) ASU – 55 letter winners back, 24 lost from 2012. 69.62% of letter winners returning in 2013.
11) CAL – 52 letter winners back, 23 lost from 2012. 69.33% of letter winners returning in 2013.
12) UTAH – 50 letter winners back, 34 lost from 2012. 59.52% of letter winners returning in 2013.
Now, it's important to clarify one thing as Steele says in his article – schools define how to actually win a varsity letter in very different terms. Some schools make it easy, others make it tougher in regards to playing time, etc.
That said, Colorado has the most returning AND fewest lost from last year, so they come in first across the board in the conference and look like one of the most experienced teams in the country (#6 in the nation overall). In the Pac-12 North, 5 of the 6 teams are all in the top 45 overall in the country (UW, Oregon State, Stanford, WSU and Oregon). So it isn't just an illusion, but the P-12 North looks pretty experienced coming back this year.
But from a Wazzu perspective, what's interesting is that we have by far the fewest total of letter winners back in 2013 (43, next fewest is Utah with 50). Sure we only lost 16 letter winners from last year, but, we only saw the Cougs hand out 59 letters overall. When you have 85 scholarships to work with, well, it's just kind of interesting that 26 possible scholarships didn't letter. Of course there are redshirts and players lost to injury to factor in with that total number, and I don't even think we were at a full 85 scholarships last year? But it kind of jumped out a bit that the Cougs were smack dab in the middle of the percentage of letter winners coming back in the Pac-12, yet have 7 fewer than the #11 team in the conference in Utah? We'll see what it all means this fall, but kind of an interesting angle in all this.
Moving on, Cougfan has a look at 10 reasons to feel good about the 2013 Cougs, even if others might not be on board quite yet (and the article is FREE). Sure, it's a glass-half-full look at the team for this year, but it's an excellent take on why there may be some legit, below-the-radar type things to feel a quiet sense of optimism heading into '13. I especially liked item #5 on the list, with just the general idea of improvement in year 2 with this coaching staff. It's a good read, so check it out.
Ted Miller's blog looks at Pac-12 defenses that were down last year but could bounce back in 2013. Yes, WSU is on the list.
Miller's blog also looks at the betting lines that are already moving a bit since Monday. And yes, there is some movement already on WSU's lines!
That's really it for a light morning around the Coug blogosphere. Enjoy your Thursday, RISE 'N GRIND and GO COUGS!
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