It has arrived!

I'll be your Notre Dame tour guide, taking you on a trek through Phil Steele's mind (at least when it relates to ND Football).

Steele has the Irish ranked 7th overall in his pre-season top 25, with the season culminating in a Gator Bowl matchup against Clemson (he has Texas and Florida in the NC). Steele says of the Irish:

I had the Irish as my Most Improved Team last year and they went from 3-9 to a bowl win but could have finished much stronger with 3 blown double-digit leads. Seven of their 8 units make my top units list. They have just 4 true road games and 3 year veteran QB Jimmy Clausen operates behind my #5 rated O-line with my #1 set of rec's to throw to. Jon Tenuta will call the defensive signals (one of the best) and he has a lot of talent to work with.

He also has the Irish as his #4 surprise team this season, stating that the Irish "have a shot at playing in the title game."

Steele mentioned that seven of eight units make the top positions list. Here are the rankings: 12th in quarterbacks, 17th in running backs, 1st (!) in wide receivers, 5th in offensive line (again... !), the defensive line is unranked, 14th in linebackers, 7th in defensive backs, and 19th in special teams. He admits that the receivers' ranking will shock many, and points to the experience as the reason why he rates the offensive line so highly (stating "this is the Irish's best OL of the decade).

As far as individual, draft-eligible, player positional rankings, here you go:
Offense- Clausen 10th QB, Armando Allen 47th RB, James Aldridge 54th RB, Golden Tate 6th WR, Duval Kamara 22nd WR, Mike Ragone 19th TE, Dan Wenger 11th C, Chris Stewart 13th G, Eric Olsen 25th G, Sam Young 4th T.
Defense- Ian Williams 20th DT, Brian Smith 14th ILB, Toryan Smith 53rd ILB, Darrin Walls 15th CB, Raeshon McNeil 47th CB, Gary Gray 59th CB, Harrison Smith 15th FS, Kyle McCarthy 21st SS.
Special Teams- Eric Maust 17th P, Armando Allen 17th KR, Golden Tate 19th PR.
Also, Jimmy Clausen is listed as a "contender" for the Heisman Trophy, while Golden Tate is listed as a "possibility".

Notes on the schedule:
The underdog has won five of the last seven games in the Michigan series.
The home team is 1-7 in the Michigan State series.
The Irish have never lost to Washington (7-0) and have won their last seven games against Stanford.
Meanwhile, the Irish have lost their last seven matchups with USC and their last six matchups with BC. The two games are back-to-back, and (as crazy as it sounds) I can see us upsetting USC, being undefeated, and losing to BC the next week.
The Irish have split their last four games with Pitt.

Some other notes: Steele has Manti Te'o starting at the strongside linebacker position, with Steve Filer playing the weakside. He believes that a combination of injury problems and inexcusable collapses kept the Irish from having a record more representative of their overall talent last year (ahem... coaching). One of the power (computer) rankings called for the Irish to go unbeatend in 2009. Steele also points out that, to this point, Weis' overall record is worse than both Tyrone's and Boob Davie's when they were fired. Finally, Steele sees the Irish as having the 36th toughest schedule in the country.

One final side note: Doesn't Phil look a lot like Richard Kiel, the guy from Happy Gilmore with a nail in his head?