Top 12 College Football Preseason Resources
Last week I answered a question from one of our readers on how I go about preparing for the upcoming college football season.
In the article I mentioned a few of the websites that I read to help me stay up to date on teams and conferences throughout the country. I said that I would write a more detailed post this week covering those resources and several others.
As a prelude to the top 12 college football preseason resources I like to use, let’s first talk about Twitter. As I mentioned in last week’s article, it is one of my main sources of college football information.
I literally have hundreds of Twitter feeds setup on my Tweetdeck that I have separated into columns for individual conferences and general college football info.
1. ESPN COLLEGE FOOTBALL
This is my biggest resource for college football information. Not only do they post great “general” college football information, they also have some great conference blogs that are loaded with info, especially the daily “Lunch Links,” which provide team and conference information from a variety of sources.
In addition, I have a subscription to ESPN INSIDER, which gives you access to premium college football information including more team and conference information, Blue Ribbon Yearbook Previews and ESPN College Football Rumors.
From a Twitter perspective I follow each conference separately. For example I have @ESPN_Pac12blog in my Tweetdeck’s PAC 12 column, @ESPN_BigTen in my Big Ten column, etc.
2. SB NATION COLLEGE FOOTBALL
The guy I follow here is Bill Connelly (@SBN_BillC). He writes excellent team previews for all 128 (?) FBS schools (which he has already started for 2014).
He also writes for another great SB Nation college football site called Football Study Hall. Both sites contain the previews, but Football Study Hall also has some terrific analytical information as well.
The other great thing about SB Nation College Football is they have individual blogs for every single FBS college football team. Here is the link to the list of schools. You can really get some great nuggets by reading these individual blogs.
3. CBS SPORTS COLLEGE FOOTBALL
CBS Sports College Football has three of my favorite college football writers: Bruce Feldman (Feldman no longer writes for CBS …. his new/current Twitter address is @BruceFeldmanCFB), Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) & Mr. College Football Tony Barnhart (@MrCFB).
All three are extremely knowledgeable about what’s going on in the world of college football. I especially like Feldman & Dodd’s weekly mailbags. You will definitely find some nuggets within these weekly Q & A’s.
4. USA TODAY – COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Paul Myerberg (@PaulMyerberg) writes team previews throughout the off-season that are extremely detailed and informative.
5. COLLEGE FOOTBALL NEWS
One of my all-time favorite preview sites. Their detailed breakdown and analysis of conferences and teams is second to none.
6. YAHOO COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton), one of my favorite college football writers, used to write the Dr. Saturday column (@YahooDrSaturday), but he has since moved on.
However, there are still a few excellent writers that I follow on my Twitter feed, including Pat Forde (@YahooForde) & Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel).
7. NBC SPORTS – COLLEGE FOOTBALL TALK
This is one of my favorite Twitter follows (@CFTalk) because they consistently tweet about the latest college football news.
They don’t have any team or conference previews, but if you want to keep up to date on suspensions, injuries, rumors, etc., they are a must follow.
8. PHIL STEELE
No one has a better preseason magazine than Phil (@philsteele042). It is a must have/read when it comes to preseason preparation. However, before the magazine becomes available (usually the first week of June), the Phil Steele website & blog have some good tidbits of information, including his list of returning starters for each team.
9. SATURDAY DOWN SOUTH
This is the only conference specific site I have in my “Main Follow Group” column on my Tweetdeck (@SDS). The site is loaded with SEC news, information, analysis, previews and daily links to SEC related articles (including the occasional TSE SEC article).
10. THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL MATRIX
Dave Bartoo’s (@CFBMatrix) blog is loaded with great information on recruiting, returning starters, analytics, projected season win totals and much more.
If you are looking for unique college football information, analysis and opinions, then Dave is a must follow on Twitter.
11. COLLEGE FOOTBALL STATISTICS
This is my favorite site for college football stats. The site (@cfbstats) is loaded with unique national, conference, team & player stats. It has some great stuff that is not available on any other website.
12. THE SATURDAY EDGE
I may be a homer, but our site has some excellent conference & team previews. Last year we did a pre-spring preview for each team and followed that up with a post-spring wrap up. This year we’ll just be doing the post-spring wrap ups for each team.
All our team previews are written by people who are very close to the program and they (almost always) contain a few excellent informational nuggets.
If you want to streamline your college football Twitter follows to a few informative sites, I would definitely recommend you follow @saturdayedge. I am constantly tweeting out college football information, articles to read, stats, projections, etc.
These are pretty much all the main sites I look at, some more than others, throughout the off-season as I prepare for the upcoming college football season.
Please leave me a comment below and let me know some of the resources, websites and magazines you monitor for preseason information.
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6 thoughts on “Top 12 College Football Preseason Resources”
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MAXIMIZE YOUR EDGE
I could probably whittle your list down to 6, but I can’t argue with the point of browsing the other 6 on occasion.
ESPN College Football site with the Insider subscription is certainly the “go to” site for college football year round. Anyone is going to be hard-pressed to find more info on college football through the year.
Phil Steele’s preseason magazine is the “Bible” of college football. The main reason to have one is for the roster info and stats on the games from the prior season played.
I follow Bruce Feldman from the CBS sports site and have followed him from his ESPN days as there may not be any other reporter that knows college football from the inside to out as well as he does.
I got on to Paul Myerberg’s previews this season and loved every one of them. They are one of the few previews I copy and paste to my Microsoft Notebook where I keep track of all of my team and conference info through the year. Very thorough info and his opinions are usually on track.
College Football news also has some very thorough previews and that makes them prime reading material in the offseason.
Obviously you guys at the Saturday Edge do a great job of putting out a lot of info. I would not be frequenting the place and giving out my own opinions if I did not think this were so. I’ve quit interacting with other places because of the idiocrity (my word invention that will not pass spellcheck) of many of the so called “popular posters.” That is not the case here. Many readers who are not in the “know” would look at someone’s win/loss record through the year and decide who is a knowledgeable handicapper and who is not, but this is not always the case. I’ve seen a lot of posters over the years just get “damn lucky” on picks and everyone thinks they are a good handicapper until their next couple of years don’t go so well. I like to think I can tell the difference, and I know you guys know what you are talking about whenever it comes to college football.
BS, I was actually going to break the article up into something like the Top 6 & then the next 6.
Really other than ESPN (and CFB News once they start w/ their previews) I don’t check any of the other sites on a daily basis. I instead wait until they tweet about a new article or piece of info and then I click the direct link.
Another guy I forgot to mention that I follow on Twitter is @Matt_HayesSN. This is the Twitter address of The Sporting News college football writer Matt Hayes. Similar to Feldman and Dodd, he does a Friday mailbag too & you can find some good info and nuggets now and then.
For me, SB Nation has taken over the number #1 spot. ESPN obviously has a ton of info coming from many different sources, but I think SB Nation gets to the meat and potatoes of each team and breaks them down better than any site on the net. And Bill Connelly is my favorite team analyst on the net.
I think ESPN Insider lost a little bit of it’s swag when they let Bruce Feldman go. It’s still a great source of information. And it’s usually the first place I go to get the day’s football headlines. But the rest of the writers on that sight are a notch below Feldman.
I would have put Phil Steele at third. Mainly because his info is very user friendly and easy to read and decipher. Probably even more so than SB Nation. Plus when he’s not dwelling on team/player history (which I could care less about)his general stats are more useful than any other site. You just have to keep in mind that Steele is all about the stats. He’s never been one to try to break down the intangibles and the “hidden” stats like SB Nation does.
These days I’ve been getting more into the recruiting part and team needs than I have the returning starters. Although I still think the number of returning starters are very important. The better the recruiting and coaching a team has, the less the actual number of returning starters matter. For instance Baylor had just 3 more starters returning than Iowa St. did in 2013. But one finished 1st and the other 9th. But if you had paid close attention to recruiting for the last 5 years you would have seen that ISU continues to recruit on the same level as the MAC. And since Briles arrival at Baylor, they have gone from recruiting in the 60’s and 50’s to having recruiting classes in the 40’s and now the 30’s. So with the coaching and recruiting, their improvement was written on the wall. Besides the Rivals websites, one other site that I look at from time to time is 24/7 Sports, who is a net partner with CBS Sports https://247sports.com/Page/247Sports-Football-Recruiting-134
I don’t know if you guys ever go into individual team forums. But I find them very helpful. You just have to know what to look for. A lot of times if a team has players who are questionable starters for a game, you can go directly into these sites and get a better idea of their injuries and their chances to start.. The thing I always look for first thing when I go into a forum is to find out who the head moderator is. They are usually the ones who do all of the grunt work interviewing athletes and actually watching the team practices. I could care less about the opinions of the other posters. These are the guys to look for. You all may already have this bookmark, but here is the forums guide for the entire 125 FBS teams and over 450 forums. https://www.footballforumsguide.com/
Also for individual team previews after the Spring, the Goldsheet does a great job previewing each team. It’s fairly general stuff, but it gives you an idea of where each team stands coming into the season. And it’s a good read, and it’s free info, and a pretty good source of daily player/team news in the offseason. https://scores.goldsheet.com/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=goldsheet2&page=cfoot/indexpic.htm
Hi Guys – Love your work, information and knowledge + the sharing of info is great. I know you guys are busy but if there is any way you can explain the tweetdeck it would be greatly appreciated. I follow about 600 people on twitter – beat writers for each team, etc. but would love to know how to possibly break it up into conferences. I’ve heard of tweetdeck but no idea what it is, how to find it, etc. Thanks for any info/guidance you can provide.
Michael
Roswell, GA
Thanks Michael. I don’t remember exactly how I installed Tweetdeck, but I know it is a FREE app.
I believe I did it via Google Chrome, Check out this site: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/apps?hl=en-US
Type in “Tweetdeck” in the search area and you’ll get a bunch of possibilities. Try Tweetdeck Chrome Download.
If you don’t use Google Chrome I believe you can still get Tweetdeck from iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tweetdeck-by-twitter/id485812721?mt=12
Once you get it downloaded all you have to do is sign in w/ your Twitter account & password and it should take you right to Tweetdeck.
Then you can start breaking things down into columns for conferences, hashtags, etc.
Let me know if you need any further help. I’m not a Tweetdeck expert, but I should be able to help you get up and running.
If you use a Mac, Tweetdeck is available in the App Store. It was bought by Twitter a couple of years ago and doesn’t get updated quite as often as before, but it’s still a great Twitter client and an easy way to get a handle on your feeds. You can create columns to divide your feeds however you like so all feeds for say the ACC go into one column and the SEC into another. The columns can all be visible at once, depending on how many you have and how large your screen is. I recommend it – very easy to use.