Bennett's Top 25

[SmooPower]

Final ballot of coaches' poll made public. Here is how Bennett voted:

1. USC
2. Texas
3. Penn State
4. Notre Dame
5. Ohio State
6. LSU
7. Auburn
8. Virginia Tech
9. West Virginia
10. Georgia
11. Miami
12. TCU
13. Texas Tech
14. Boston College
15. Oregon
16. UCLA
17. Louisville
18. Clemson
19. Florida
20. Florida State
21. Alabama
22. Oklahoma
23. Iowa
24. Georgia Tech
25. Wisconsin

[mrydel]

Houston Nutt accidentally left West Virginia out of his poll. He had to call and apologize.

[lugus830]

Oregon at 15th.....interesting. I thought that they had a better year than that. I guess he had to move someone down to push TCU up a little higher.

[LonghornFan68]

I can't say i much disagree with his poll. Of course, you could argue one or two placements, but all-in-all I think it's a solid ranking.

ACtually, the Oregon vote is a bit strange, but whateva.

[jtstang]

Oregon at 15th.....interesting. I thought that they had a better year than that. I guess he had to move someone down to push TCU up a little higher.

Talent evaluation is not his strong suit....

[PK]

Talent evaluation is not his strong suit....

Just curious as to why you would say that. Just because he could not get any of the top 100's to come to SMU doesn't mean he can't evaluate talent. Do you have problems with the Chase brothers, Muse, Kennedy, Sturdivant, D.D. Lee, Rogers, Nnabuife, Haywood, Martin and any number of others? Just curious.

[BrianTinBigD]

He is a great evaluator of talent. He just has a hard time figuring out how to use it.

[SMU Football Blog]

Talent evaluation is not his strong suit....

As opposed to Tubbs, who I suppose you think can evaluate talent. I guess he just can't get them enrolled or keep them in class.

[Water Pony]

Two items, West Virginia appears to high and Oregon deserves better recognition. Apparently he really like Texas, TT and TCU.

[jtstang]

Talent evaluation is not his strong suit....

Just curious as to why you would say that.

Because I thought it was funny.

[me@smu]

WV is too high...Big East is a joke conference now that BC/Miami and Va Tech left.

Oregon deserved better and so did florida. UCLA 15 is a little high considering the 66 points they just had hung on them.

[jtstang]

As opposed to Tubbs, who I suppose you think can evaluate talent. I guess he just can't get them enrolled or keep them in class.

Don't recall ever espousing the greatness of Tubbs as a talent evaluator per se, although I do not quarrel with any of the top tier players he has had looking at SMU where others could not even pull that off. I do recall admitting to being a big Tubbs apologist, though, which makes my credibility on the issue as suspect as yours, a known Tubbs basher.

[RE Tycoon]

Way to go Bennett, keep SMU in the news.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2249627
(scroll down to Bennett mention)

[Dutch]

WV is too high...Big East is a joke conference now that BC/Miami and Va Tech left.

Oregon deserved better and so did florida. UCLA 15 is a little high considering the 66 points they just had hung on them.

if the Big East is a joke conference, what is CUSA?????

[PonySoprano]

I have always heard that the coaches who vote in the poll usually delegate the voting to someone in the SID office. I don't know if that's true in Phil's case. But when you think about it, other than the teams they play against, do head coaches have time to evaluate the relative strength of teams across the country? I'd be suprised if the coaches actually do complete their own ballot, and if they do, I doubt they put much time into it.