Phil Steele gives Michigan State QBs no respect|Michigan St Hot Topics|Team BattleGround|College BattleGround

Even with the college football season inching closer, we’re still left to pass the time with preseason rankings, predictions and ridiculous hot takes.

For the most part, Phil Steele is one of the better college football writers out there. His annual magazine preview of the upcoming season is one of the most popular preseason reads every year.

But like anyone who writes about sports for a living, no one is immune to an occasional swing-and-miss on something. That’s what happened in Steele’s ranking of the best QB situations in college football.

There’s no question that quarterback is one of the biggest areas of concern for Michigan State this year. However, I think it’s safe to say there aren’t 50 teams with a better situation at QB in the short and long term. For whatever reason, Steele does not agree based on his ranking.

Steele is pretty spot on with the top QB situations with teams like Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Clemson and UCLA at the top. They all have a superstar starter and/or overall great depth at the position. To no surprise, Steele isn’t high on any of the Michigan schools, but he’s so low on Michigan State that he doesn’t even have the Spartans in his top 50.

It becomes even more laughable when you see the likes of Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan and of course, Michigan, all having better situations than Michigan State.

Other teams that made his top 50 include Troy, Virginia, Georgia Southern, Marshall, Northern Illinois, SMU, Appalachian State, Illinois and Tulsa.

Sure, Connor Cook is gone, and now the Spartans must replace the man who finished his career as the winningest quarterback in school history with a 34-5 record, two Big Ten Championship Games and three bowl wins.

But the man who likely replaces Cook is not some scrub with no big-game experience. Tyler O’Connor will likely earn the starting job after helping lead the Spartans to a win at Ohio State last year when Cook was injured. Damion Terry played in that win as well, and both QBs did enough to help their team score the biggest win of their season.

And that’s not even accounting for the future of promising true freshman Messiah DeWeaver. He has the potential to be a good one for the Spartans over time, but Steele seems to be forgetting about him, and frankly the rest of the Spartans’ QBs.

I’m gonna trust Mark Dantonio’s opinion on this one more than Steele. His history of success throughout the roster, QB included, indicates that he’ll have one of the 50 best QB units this year.

To be fair to Steele, he does have Michigan State projected as one of the potential surprise teams of 2016, so at least he likes this team in general.