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or will we speak of him in the same breath as J. Burton Rix? I know, I know..young, no jucos, poor admin support, Cavan's Crew....but, man...ill prepared.....does Mark Eldred or Cary Brabham have any eligibility left? Long Live Roy Rios.

Say what you want, but you better hope to God Bennett turns this thing around. If Bennett were canned after this season (which I am 100% sure won’t happen), good luck trying to find someone dumb enough to take this job. Hands tied and zero patience from the alumni? No one would take a job under those circumstances.

Like it or not, Bennett has 2 more years to right the ship. Regardless, the standards must be changed. On the one hand, Bennett needs the standards changed to get the job done. On the other, the standards need to be changed before someone else will take this job.

Personally, I am pulling for Bennett.

Bill Meek at least won a couple. I agree that given the past non existent support of the administration the football program was a death valley for coaches but I am distressed by poor fundamentals. I see a disorganized team and poor clock management. I saw the same things under Cavan. Maybe the AD needs help in evaluating coaching talent.

If the team was as good as the excuses being made for the coaching, we'd be BCS.

I think, personally, everyone associated with SMU is pulling for Bennett because he is actually our coach, but I would hope we don't continue to support this clusterf*** if some serious changes aren't made.

We made that squirrel of a football player, Wiggins, look like the next Shannon Sharpe. But that's a completely different topic...

I will say one constructive bit...Phillips is probably the answer to the most important position on the field and one we haven't had in quite some time. It was refreshing to see a shotgun formation with a forward pass that wasn't drawn up in the dirt actually called today.

If Bennett has any clue, which I still believe he might, he will watch Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Pitt, and an assortment of other teams utilizing athletic QBs. Phillips is of the same mold as the QBs for those teams, and it gives us an option that is absolutely pivotal in today's college game. I know Phillips wasn't ready early on, but understand my criticisms when I profess that we wouldn't have this glorious record if someone on that coaching staff provided an exciting version of football early in the season. Luckily for Bennett, and hopefully SMU, that this maturation of a coach will hit heavily and we will see a better coach for the next few years. I will hold out hope for that and support this team until then.

The hell with TCU, too. I will personally sprint down 75 with a jock strap only if we pull that one out. Bennett has a task ahead of him, not only to try to win a game, but spend two weeks getting this team ready to play a game.

Someone scrwed up yeaterday. I'm sure of. In all the play calling, someone misunderstood and actually called a screen pass. They must have heard the call wrong. I hope whoever was responsible for that call got his [deleted] chewed out for inserting such a non-SMU like play. It was downright deceptive and unsportsman-like. Hell, RICE had never seen anything like that from SMU. How could they have possibly been prepared for it. Let's get the call right next time fellas.

Hey, Dooby...Money talks, you know what walks...Are you telling me there is absolutely NO amount of money a Jimmy Johnson would take to come to SMU?

Variety of answers to your question. First, what money? We are paying Bennett a hell of a lot more money than we paid Cavan. And Bennett is still in the bottom half of the pay scale for division 1 coaches in Texas. What leads you to believe SMU is going to shell out the big bucks next time to go get some marquee name? I’d love to see it (I even have a name in mind), but I doubt it happens. From what I recall, the no. 1choice for this job the last time was USC’s Norm Chow, who withdrew his name because we weren’t offering enough money.

Second, OK, lets bring in a guy who with a name like Lou Holtz who turned around a winless S. Carolina team in a year. How’d he do it? In large part, with junior college players. Again, until shown otherwise, I assume we aren’t doing that here.

Third, you fire Bennett, you pay him for three more years while he goes off and gets another defensive coordinator job and laughs all the way to the bank and takes a couple from our recruiting class with him.

I make no statements regarding Bennett’s ability to coach. I have never made excuses for him. I won’t start now. I have seen a lot of questionable decisions on the field, the same as you. I am saying, like it or not, there are other problems. Lets fix those, too.

Dooby - your statement:

"...good luck trying to find someone dumb enough to take this job. Hands tied and zero patience from the alumni? No one would take a job under those circumstances."

is exactly correct!

who'd want it?!

Moot point - the job's not available. And it shouldn't be - Coach Bennett will get this turned around, at which point all the alums will be saying "I had faith all along - I wasn't one of the naysayers...."

To repeat the mantra, I know we've had 14 years of incompetence in the administration and in coaching. I know we've had problems. Let's see what we look like at this point next year. If we still stink, then I suspect more changes will be made either in coaching or in the administration.