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Phillips to start season at QB for SMU

11:47 PM CDT on Wednesday, August 18, 2004

By CALVIN WATKINS / The Dallas Morning News

UNIVERSITY PARK – The offense outplayed the defense in a scrimmage on Wednesday. Starting wide receivers Devin Lowery, Blake Warren and Matt Rushbrook made defenders miss and caught sharp passes from three quarterbacks during the morning session.

Coach Phil Bennett said Chris Phillips will start the season at quarterback but that could change if Jerad Romo and Tony Eckert outplay Phillips in practice.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 10d3c.html

"The offense outplayed the defense in a scrimmage on Wednesday."

Man I love to read that! I don't think I have ever left a pony scrimmage and thought that. Hope it was against our 1st string defense, using all different def. formations.

I think that statement by Bennett was ridiculous, "Philips would start, BUT Romo or Eckert could start if they outplayed Philips in practice."

Are you kidding? If you're not ready to name a starter, don't. If you are ready to name a starter then do so, but don't qualify the statement so much.

Not a real strong statement.

Phillips should be in there as much as possible. Let him get some real experience versus the Big 12 and tcu so he can prepare for conference play.

BigEasyPony wrote:I think that statement by Bennett was ridiculous, "Philips would start, BUT Romo or Eckert could start if they outplayed Philips in practice."

Are you kidding? If you're not ready to name a starter, don't. If you are ready to name a starter then do so, but don't qualify the statement so much.

Not a real strong statement.

1) you don't want your starter to get cocky
2) you want to keep your backups motivated
3) we wouldnt be in this situation if he would have been here all summer like the juco's

I have no idea about number 3, but I suspect that if he was really behind if he didn't spend the summer here, he would have started the fall number 2 on the depth chart in order to teach him a lesson, and the JUCOs would be way ahead of him.

Bennett's comment just reflects the fac thtat Phillips has done enough to make himself the starter, but the compitition is still close enough that Phillips will be pushed for the job.

Young QBs typically don't have the greatest focus and have trouble "bringing it" to each and every practice session. I suspect that Bennett is trying to push him in order to enhance his maturing process.