Phil Steele promises that he is not trying to make Georgia fans mad. He really likes Georgia. In fact, this time last year Steele was giving a lot of love to the Bulldogs in his preseason magazine, which has become a summer time must read for hardcore college football fans.

"Last year I had Georgia ranked higher than anyone (No. 11) in the preseason and I had Florida, the defending national champions, at No. 14," said Steele, the self-described "math guy from Cleveland." "I caught a lot of grief for that. But Georgia finished No. 2 and Florida finished No. 13."

Steele, who has a staff of researchers helping him year-round, makes his annual picks by taking emotion out of the process and simply crunching the numbers — lots and lots of numbers. And Steele said the numbers will not allow him to jump on the ever-expanding Georgia bandwagon as the 2008 season approaches.

He has the Bulldogs at No. 9 and, to add insult to Georgia's emotional injury, he puts the mighty Florida Gators at No. 1 and playing Ohio State for the BCS national championship.

"I really like Georgia's team and if I were an AP (Associated Press poll) voter, I would probably put them at No. 1," Steele said. "But I base my rankings on where I think a team will finish, not where they should start."

Four other preseason magazines analyzed by the AJC do not share Steele's view of the Bulldogs. Two (The Sporting News, Lindy's) had Georgia No. 1. College Football News had Georgia at No. 2 and Athlon had the Bulldogs at No. 5. The consensus of the magazines had Georgia tied with USC and Oklahoma for the No. 2 spot behind No. 1 Ohio State.

"I just think Georgia's defense is terrific," said Matt Hayes, the national college football writer for The Sporting News. "Everybody knows how great [running back] Knowshon Moreno is. If [quarterback Matthew] Stafford takes the next step in his development — and I'm sure he will — Georgia will have one of the most balanced offenses around. I also think that it's time for [wide receiver Mohamed] Massaquoi to step up and show that he's ready to play for NFL money."

Anthony Gimino, the senior editor at Lindy's, said there was a pretty strong internal debate at the magazine before the decision was finally made to go with Georgia as its No. 1 team.

"You look at Georgia's schedule and you know how hard it is," Gimino said. "But we just finally came to the conclusion that when you're picking No. 1, you should just go with the best team and not try to predict the future and how they will finish. We looked at Georgia and all that incredible talent and decided that they were the best team. So we went with them."

Steele said that despite Georgia's talent, which he says is considerable, it is hard to see the Bulldogs going through their schedule without at least a couple of losses.

"I am really concerned about four games for Georgia," Steele said. "They go to South Carolina [Sept. 13] and play a team that beat them last year in Athens. And this South Carolina team is better, particularly on defense. They have to go to LSU [Oct. 25] and by then LSU will have played at Auburn, at Florida and at South Carolina. The next week they play Florida [Nov. 1 in Jacksonville] and you have to remember that Tim Tebow was not 100 percent in last year's game. He was 60 percent of their offense. And the game that is really scary is the trip to Auburn [Nov. 15]. If they lose two of those games they'll finish somewhere in the bottom half of the Top 10 and will still be a great team."

The consensus of the magazines has three SEC teams (Georgia, Florida, LSU) in the Top 10 with Auburn at No. 11. But those same magazines give Auburn a slight edge to win the SEC West while Florida squeaks by Georgia to win the East.

Over in the ACC, Clemson and Virginia Tech were unanimous picks to win the Atlantic and Coastal divisions, respectively. Georgia Tech was picked to finished fourth in the division under first year coach Paul Johnson.

SEC fans should take this to heart. All five magazines have an SEC team (Florida or Georgia), playing for the BCS championship. Four of the five magazines have Ohio State as the opponent. Ohio State has lost two consecutive BCS championship games to SEC teams (Florida and LSU).