More on Steele's PSU ranking: 2008's No. 10 isn't anything like 2007's No. 10

Does anyone else realize that Phil Steele ranked Penn State No. 10 going into 2007? That's just something I'd like to point out. I understand that Penn State had all the makings of a top-10 team last year, but 2008 begs this question: Why are people so shocked that 2008 could be a much better season than 2007? Morelli, Connor, Kinlaw and Lee (for now) are gone, which adds up to two negatives and two positives. That's not a whole lot to lose, considering what Penn State brings back in 2008.

It was all about the "senior quarterback" last year. Morelli was coming off what was viewed as the stepping stone bowl performance, to lead his team to the BCS. We all got so caught up in the hype that it killed us to see the truth, that Morelli was hopelessly under-coached and the mistakes kept coming. He couldn't move in the pocket to save his life, resulting in a horrible campaign behind an excellent offensive line. Only Morelli could have pulled that one off.

This leads me to my next point about Phil Steele's rankings. Before 2007, Steele & Co. weren't that outrageous to put Penn State at No. 10. Shit, Beano-Freaking-Cook even picked Penn State as a national championship contender. But 2008 feels different. This year, it's not "expected" to go BCS-well. That might work out better than we could hope for.

So while I just seemed to go on a long-winded contradiction of myself, it's really not that backward to say all this. Penn State will retain the same exact pre-season ranking as Phil Steele's 2007 magazine, but these are two polar opposite No. 10 rankings. We'll discuss this more over the summer, but I just thought I'd mention it now.

Ok, four posts in one day. I'm done. See you Monday with the first official team preview: Coastal Carolina.