Phil Bennett answers questions from the media at a press conference held Monday afternoon inside Ford Stadium. Bennett was fired Sunday after the team was eliminated from bowl eligibility. Photo by John Schreiber, The Daily Campus

Watch writers Jordan Hofeditz and Mark Norris discuss Phil Bennett’s firing and what’s next for SMU.

Phil Bennett was fired Sunday as head coach of the SMU football team, but will stay on to coach the remaining four games this season. The decision came after a 29-23 loss at Tulsa that dropped the Mustangs to 1-7 overall and 0-4 in conference play and officially eliminated the team from bowl contention.

Athletic director Steve Orsini sat down with Bennett on Sunday afternoon and notified him of the decision.

“To say it doesn’t hurt would be a lie, it does,” Bennett said Monday at an afternoon press conference. “I am very disappointed that we came so close, but didn’t get the program to the level we all wanted it to.”

Orsini asked Bennett to stay on for the remainder of the season, and the coach enthusiastically accepted the offer.

“I don’t want them playing for me,” Bennett said. “I want them playing number one for their selves, their team, their program and this university.”

The firing is the culmination of a season gone horribly wrong for the coach and his team.

Bennett said repeatedly before the season that he expected to take SMU to its first bowl game since the Death Penalty and legitimately challenge for a conference title.

Instead, the Mustangs got trampled in the nationally televised season opener against Texas Tech, squeaked out a win against North Texas and now find themselves mired in a six-game losing streak.

“It isn’t a black and white thing, it’s something you assess,” Orsini said of the move occurring with games remaining. “You look at the whole program, which I always have, and we felt the time was right now to do that.”

This season has been like others Bennett has coached, with SMU getting close but not quite where it wanted.

“We’ve been close. But you all know…close doesn’t count,” Bennett said.

Bennett mentioned two recent situations, a 2005 loss at Marshall and quarterback Justin Willis being suspended and missing the UTEP game in 2006, that were bad breaks for the program. He said all programs need a little luck in addition to good playing to be successful. During his time at SMU, that never happened.

SMU will buy out Bennett’s contract.

It runs through Dec. 31, 2008 and is valued at nearly $500,000 per year. An option for 2009 was voided when the coach failed to win seven games in 2006.

After Orsini and Bennett met Sunday afternoon, the two met with the entire coaching staff and Bennett notified them of the decision. Orsini said the assistant coaches have contracts that run through May 2008 and they will be honored regardless of what changes occur.

Then the two met with the entire team. Bennett led the meeting and explained how the rest of the season would work, and Orsini also spoke in front of the players.

Bennett said he didn’t mince any words and told the team that the administration had decided to make changes in leadership at the end of the season.

“It’s like anything, some of them will be sad for a little bit,” Bennett said. “A month from now when they hire a new coach, they’ll talk about the new things, neat things that he does and all the crummy things I did. It’s just the nature of the beast.”

Bennett has a cumulative record of 18-48 during his six-year tenure on the Hilltop. Bennett had increased the number of wins season to season over the past three years, topping out at last year’s 6-6 record.

The six wins made SMU bowl eligible, but the Mustangs failed to win the season finale at Rice that was necessary to earn a bowl slot.

Following the game, Orsini went through a two-day evaluation period that ultimately led to Bennett returning for the 2007 season.

Bennett said any coach’s goal is to leave on his own terms and leave the job better than he found it.

“Without being critical of anybody else, I know it’s a better situation,” he said. “But I did not leave on my terms, which is disappointing.”

The future will probably include coaching at another school for Bennett, but he doesn’t expect to make any decisions quickly.

“I just sort of want to gather my thoughts,” he said. “That’s who I am – I’m a coach. I enjoy it. I don’t know where it will lead me, but it’s always been exciting.”