Head football coach Phil Bennett revealed the 2004 recruitingclass roster at a press conference held Wednesday, the NCAA’snational signing day for college football.

“Last year, we went for mostly offensive linemen. Thisyear we’re trying to be three-deep on our depth chart in allpositions,” Bennett said.

The Mustangs added 16 new scholarship players to the theirroster, including 13 incoming freshman players and three juniorcollege recruits. Three players who walked on to the team in 2003were also awarded scholarships following the fall semester.

All but one of the players hail from Texas, which keeps in linewith Bennett’s vow to keep his staff’s recruitingefforts within a 300-mile radius of Dallas. Bennett also noted theeffort to establish relationships with area high school coaches andSMU’s coming alliance with Conference USA as key factors insigning the players.

“I think we’ve really found a home in C-USA.I’ve talked about playing in a regionalized conference sinceI arrived here because I think it gives people the chance to travelto games, and they will know about their competition. People willknow other kids on teams like the University of Houston,”Bennett said.

Regarding the relationships his staff is building with highschool coaches, Bennett noted the help of his older brother Jim,the head coach at Irving High School, who coached two of theMustangs’ recruits.

“I think that Jim helped to protect Vincent Chase fromother schools that were recruiting him so he had a chance to comehere,” Bennett said, chuckling.

Chase, a 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound tight end, dubbed Texas’top-ranked tight end by The Dallas Morning News, was also beingrecruited by Florida, Kansas State, LSU and Oklahoma.

As he went down the list of new recruits, Bennett noted othertop recruits such as cornerback Cortley Blackmon from Bay City,Texas, and running back Jessie Henderson of Paris, Texas.

“I didn’t believe it at camp that Henderson ran a4.3 40-yard dash, so I took the clock over myself and he ran a4.35. The only player I’ve ever clocked at that time is[current Dallas Cowboy and former Kansas State cornerback] TerrenceNewman,” he said.

Bennett said that the staff had wanted Henderson ever since heparticipated in the SMU football camp last summer.

“I saw him playing in a seven-on-seven drill and told thecoaches we had to get him. He knows the end zone … he scoredmore touchdowns by himself last year in high school than we did allseason,” Bennett said.

Bennett, who is going into his third year as head coach,continually praised his staff for not dwelling on the woes of lastseason’s 0-12 record.

“We didn’t address last season’s mark. We knewwe had work to do. We would simply tell the recruits that if theywanted to be a part of something that they could take pride in,then they should take a look at us,” he said.

As for the rebuilding, four scholarship quarterbacks and fournew cornerbacks should aid in the effort to revive the sputteringMustang offense and allow the luxury of having multiple defensivebacks to run more of the nickel and dime defensive packages thatBennett hopes to employ.

But more than anything, the coach was excited about the classcoming to school at SMU.

“We have great academics, a great facility, beautifulcampus and Dallas as a city, but above all, the people here at SMUare great,” he said. “One thing the parents of therecruits repeatedly noticed when they came to visit was that thecurrent players like it here.”