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We are far enough into the season, and the coaching career of Bennett to start reaching conclusions about his coaching ability. The given positivie is that he did a fine job of recruiting last year. Whether he can follow that up with another this year after this worst-of-all-seasons is to be seen.
On the other hand, his coaching ability to me is extremely suspect. I fully understand and appreciate his lack of talent. However, can anyone point to some action on his part that shows on th field that indicates a "talent" at coaching? There are many contra indications such as the 2 point try yesterday, removing redshirts and then not playing the players, playing an offense (i.e. Wallis and others) that has proven totally ineffective, lack of inventiveness in offense, failure to have the team prepared (being beaten-badly-by previously winless team, and ___________(Supply your own examples).
I greatly admire Coach Bennett and pray he is our solution and think his dismissal would be a devastating blow to our already dying program. But what can be done? Some have suggested that we just wait til all these good players mature. Then their ability will overcome our coaches inability to coach. That is a sad prospect.
I am searching for answers here folks. I don't ever recall feeling this low about SMU and its football program. If I, a long-time die-hard SMU grad and fan feels this way, how many other of less convisciton have we irretrivably lost due to our ineffective coaching?

I feel the same way you do. But what can we do?

Did Bennett get a 5 yr deal? Next year is #3 and will be a critical year to show some improvement, both from the standpoint of his ability to recruit...and to avoid year #4 being "do it this year or face a buyout of that 5th year".

One big question is going to be who we play next year. With the anticipated announcements this week on conference realignments, the next question is whether the various conference commish's can broker a deal for everyone to switch seats in time for the 2004 season. There has been a lot of talk about doing so to protect everyone involved. There are some serious hostilities out there, especially in the Big East towards BC.

If we were to start CUSA play next year, it will be tough. Who in CUSA will be any weaker than San Jose, UTEP & Nevada? Those were our best chances at competing this year (Tulsa and Rice are a given, no matter which league we play in).

I just don't see anything that tells me this team will be competitive until 2005 or 2006.

Gentlemen and ladies too, I am as tired of the 2 yds and a cloud of dust as the rest of you, but am I the only one who can see that we just plain don't have the ability right now to have a passing offense? The stats show that we had 16 attempts and only 6 receptions, but in reality we tried a lot more pass plays than that. Wallis was sacked at least three times and Phillips probably the same. Once they start scrambling it counts as a run unless they can get the pass off. In those sacks, our recievers were covered up or our pass blocking so pourous that there was not time for the recievers to get open. I wish Wallis could learn to throw the ball away rather than get sacked, but that is just another one of our problems. We have terrible pass blocking, especially when the other team blitizes. The pass from Wallis to Chris Cunningham was a miracle as he was double teamed and the ball just barely wizzed past one of the defenders. Yes, it would be great to have a TE open down the middle, but he is needed for additional pass blocking. Unfortunately, right now our only consistant offensive ability is the run and yes it gets boring...and predictable.

As far as playing time, Phillips got two series and then Wallis got two series then Phillips and then Wallis and so on. The amount of plays that each got to play was determined by the ability of each QB to keep their drives going. Amazingly enough, Wallis was able to sustain drives overall longer than Phillips. I don't have any way of knowing why Bennett doesn't play Phillips the whole game, but maybe it is to give him time on the sideline observing what the defense is doing so that he can go back in with a better understanding...or maybe there is another reason. I don't think there is a coach alive including Bennett that enjoys watching or directing the kind of offense we are using right now, but I suspect that it is an attempt to play the odds with what we are able to do best. That said, it is obvious that once we get close to the goal line, we just don't have the horses to get it across the line or the touchdown gods hate us.

PK, no you're not alone. I'm with you on all of that. Good point on all the sacks counting as runs, I didnt think of that.

CP, in C-USA we might be competitive with EC and Temple (assuming an invitation). In our division we are in over our heads. Even Tulsa and Rice have passed us by. TCU, Tulane and Houston are clearly better.

I counted Wallis getting sacked 8 ties with two fumbles and a bobble on the FG yesterday -but I'm not sure if a guy who fumbles when sacked is considered sacked. Anyway, I also got Phillips with 88 yards rushing in a little more than 3 quarters of play this year. Granted neither one appears to be able to pass, what's the issue?

Great comments by all. The thing I hate is that we never get to hear Bennett’s take on the situation (i.e. press conference, tv show, interview). Why he chooses to go for 2 instead of kick the extra point, why he plays Wallis as much as he does, why we never throw, ect. About the only time I hear anything about SMU football is a small quote from Bennett in the DMN or when he talks to Norm Thursday on the Ticket when Norm usually asks about the bigger picture rather than about specific plays or decision from the previous game. It has been like that for years. SMU doesn’t have a voice in the public eye. Its no wonder why casual college football fans in Dallas could care less about SMU football. The only thing they ever hear about SMU is in the Sunday’s DMN that we lost to Whatever State by 30. TCU on the other hand has done everything possible to get on the minds of people in FW.

I would say the issue in Phillips case is lack of experience. In the "briefs" in the DMN the other day, it sounded like Phillips was having some difficulties reading the defenses. That should be less of a problem with more game and practice experience.

there is no way that any QB could read a defense worse than Tate Wallis. He ain't going to be our QB next year-might as well allow the freshman to learn.

Bennett did talk about it after the game. He said that Phillips was not picking up the reads properly and that is why he was not in more. It may be a confidence thing in Bennett's mind, but I agree with others who say put Phillips in and let him learn on the job. There is much difference looking at it from the sidelines and seeing it on the field.

I was happy with some defensive improvements and higher intensity...for a while anyway. Get some maturity on the big men (and/or plug in some juco linemen), and things should be on track in a couple of years. I still have faith that this is a building process, not rebuilding, it is from scratch and that means starting over.

I really hope we see more of Phillips against LaTech. Even with no protection, he still gives us a better chance. Hard to imagine Wallis picking up a 1st down on 3rd and 17 on a QB draw, like he did. Let's hope Phillips can jump the learning curve this week in practice, and Wallis can start preparing himself to play some other position next year (he IS a real competitor, and I know he can contribute, just not at QB in the long haul). Phillips only needs experience. And good god, do we need big men.

Originally posted by mrydel:
Bennett did talk about it after the game. He said that Phillips was not picking up the reads properly and that is why he was not in more.

SEE THAT IS THE THING THAT CHAPS ME. IF WALLIS IS SO GREAT AT MAKING THE READS THEN WHY DO HIS RESULTS STINK? GIVE ME THE KID WITH TALENT AND LET HIM LEARN.

There are a lot of things you can learn in the game that you can't learn in practice, such as adjusting to the speed of the game and dealing with the crowd noise, but I'm not sure reading the defense is something you learn just by playing the game, because seeing an alignment and then seeing the results are hard to do if someone is in your face or you are laying on your back looking up into the sky. Learning to read the defense is probably better done watching game films and in practice where a coach can point out what the different alignments mean and how you deal with them successfully.

You probably noticed that Phillips had more playing time this game than he had in the Tulsa game...and I bet he gets even more time in the next game. You could over whelm him by just throwing him to the wolves and say good luck. This way he knows that it is not entirely up to him to carry the team and that his mistakes aren't necessarily the ones that lost the game. It's kind of like teaching a kid to swim. I've heard where you can just throw a kid into a deep pool and tell him to sink or swim (in other words learn how to do it from the experience), however, I would think you could drown a lot of kds that way to. It works better if you teach the process slowly while you're in the water with the kid so he has some confidence and doesn't wind up being afraid of water for the rest of his life.

We all want a quick fix and it ain't coming guys. Phillips has great potential and talent...but he doesn't walk on water.