My take on Bennett
Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:44 amI know many of you may not care to hear this from me, but here's my take on it all.
Bennett has done a very, very solid job. I think only the most negative of people could think anything less.
It took him a while, and there were some major dissapointments near the beginning of his tenure, but Bennett has begun to turn this program around about as well as almost anyone could, short only of the iraculous workings of such as Pete Carroll (USC isn't hard to win at, but he's still done something amazing... to think this was supposed to be a major "down year").
AT THE VERY LEAST, Bennett needs to be given another year or two. Firing him now would make no sense in light of not firing him after the winless season. Since that debacle, he has improven on the overall record, beat TCU for the first time in a long time, and, most importantly, slowly started to bring to SMU a level of talent much better than what it became used to in the late 90's.
And let's be honest, Bennet is probably about as good as SMU can hope to do right now. Not many coaches are going to want to come to SMU, for the obvious reasons of not being in an overly attractive conference, not having the greatest facilities or athletes, not having overly-flattering media exposure, and of course most likely not having a huge paycheck. And don't take this as someone bad-mouthing SMU or anything like that. I speak as one who understands. Although we have a "better" conferance affiliation, Baylor people know very well that because of facilities, talent, winning percentage, and paycheck numbers it's hard to pull a "big-time" coach to BU.
Bennett came into arguably the worst program in the nation, and has done a solid job of making it respectable once more. Moreover, the program is only now beginning to hit its stride under his leadership. I say give him more time.
That is all.
Bennett has done a very, very solid job. I think only the most negative of people could think anything less.
It took him a while, and there were some major dissapointments near the beginning of his tenure, but Bennett has begun to turn this program around about as well as almost anyone could, short only of the iraculous workings of such as Pete Carroll (USC isn't hard to win at, but he's still done something amazing... to think this was supposed to be a major "down year").
AT THE VERY LEAST, Bennett needs to be given another year or two. Firing him now would make no sense in light of not firing him after the winless season. Since that debacle, he has improven on the overall record, beat TCU for the first time in a long time, and, most importantly, slowly started to bring to SMU a level of talent much better than what it became used to in the late 90's.
And let's be honest, Bennet is probably about as good as SMU can hope to do right now. Not many coaches are going to want to come to SMU, for the obvious reasons of not being in an overly attractive conference, not having the greatest facilities or athletes, not having overly-flattering media exposure, and of course most likely not having a huge paycheck. And don't take this as someone bad-mouthing SMU or anything like that. I speak as one who understands. Although we have a "better" conferance affiliation, Baylor people know very well that because of facilities, talent, winning percentage, and paycheck numbers it's hard to pull a "big-time" coach to BU.
Bennett came into arguably the worst program in the nation, and has done a solid job of making it respectable once more. Moreover, the program is only now beginning to hit its stride under his leadership. I say give him more time.
That is all.