Phil Bennett
Now
Career arc
Bowls and playoffs: 1-1
2010BBVA Compass BowlW 27-10
North Texas
2022Frisco BowlL 32-35
Fans
No fan talk about him on our list yet. His record is on Career.
Stats
Big games
The big-game ledger
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
2-9 against his rivals. Winless in 5 tries against Mike Leach.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Signature games
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he plays
Run/pass mix, by field position
Ran more than the situation called for under Bloesch.
74 run and pass snaps at North Texas, 2022–2022, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Pass rate, stint by stint
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Building the roster
Two numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
Roster ownership
Roster ownership
of his 2022 roster arrived on his watch — 115 of 115 players. Nobody is left from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 14% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Where he recruits
is his biggest recruiting state: 11 of 13 signees (85%) across his 2022–2022 tenure, drawn from 3 states in all. Next: AL (1).
- median hometown distance
- 68 mi
- within 100 mi
- 50%
- within 500 mi
- 88%
- beyond 1,000 mi
- 5%
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
News
No outlet on our list has written about him by name yet. His record is on Career.
Career
Coaching career
The arc of his career is on Now.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
Followed Seth Littrell (2016–2022) · succeeded by Eric Morris (2023–2025).
Outperforms his recruiting talent on offense and underperforms his recruiting talent on defense.
Brings in smaller-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
Followed Dave Wannstedt (2005–2010) · succeeded by Todd Graham (2011).
5 NFL Draft picks: Jonathan Baldwin (2011), Jabaal Sheard (2011), Dion Lewis (2011), Jason Pinkston (2011), Greg Romeus (2011)
18th-best SMU tenure of 18 by the numbers.
Followed Mike Cavan (1997–2001) · succeeded by June Jones (2008–2014).
| Season | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||||
| Record | 3-9 | 0-12 | 3-8 | 5-6 | 6-6 | 1-11 | |
| Postseason | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||||
| Offense | — | — | 50 | 35 | 50 | 58 | |
| Defense | — | — | 28 | 60 | 42 | 31 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||||
| 1st-down pass% | — | — | 42.9 | 30.9 | 40.7 | 46.3 | |
| Red-zone pass% | — | — | 36.4 | 25.0 | 44.2 | 48.4 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | — | — | — | 12.9 | 28.6 | 29.0 | |
2 NFL Draft picks: Kevin Garrett (2003), Justin Rogers (2007)
Was he good?
A mixed record — ahead of expectations by some measures here, behind by others. The honest read is that it depends which lens you use.
-4.6 pts at SMU · #981 of 1290 · bottom quarterModel fit as of 2026-09-04.