One of the mile-markers of the summer is the appearance of Phil Steele. He’s Punxsutawneyish like that. But when he emerges from his bunker and starts dropping things like predicted orders of finish and all-America and all-conference teams, we know we’re not as far from the finish line as we were before.

Well, today we have the first of his top-40 previews (Spoiler: Cincinnati!)

Yesterday after 6 months of long hard work, we sent off the final 32 pages of this year’s 2015 College Football Preview to press. With that in mind, today’s blog will officially start the countdown of my 2015 Top 40 teams that will appear in the magazine and will hit the newsstands on June 30th! Every day now thru July 12th, I will post both magazine pages on each team (for 24 hours only) and you can get an early look on how I breakdown your
favorite team.

In truth, though, the preamble started yesterday. Steele unveiled his all-America and all-conference teams. West Virginia had two all-America selections, and I’m no longer able to resist how fascinated I am by what may come of Karl Joseph’s senior season and how that translates to the pro level. There were 11 Mountaineers on the all-conference teams — three on offense, four on defense and four (!) on special teams — but I’m not going to lie to you: K.J. Dillon is too low if we’re doing this like Steele does it by projecting who will be where at the end rather than listing based on where people are now. I feel like if things go as planned he has a monster year.

We’ll have to wait to see, of course, but we only have to wait a while longer until we get to revel in his junior year and pay that forward.

K.J. Dillon’s (@K_DILLON20) Official Junior Highlight Video is coming Monday 6/8 pic.twitter.com/j7DEnETURD

— Doug Cross (@DougityDog) June 1, 2015