The ranking for Troy this week marked the first time a Sun Belt Conference team has made the AP Top 25.
“It’s a culmination of three, four or five years now,” Benson said. “We’ve never had a team ranked, and for Troy to jump into the polls this week just increases the overall credibility to Sun Belt football in general.
“We’ve had teams in the past that we thought should have been ranked and weren’t. This, hopefully, will break the ceiling and allow for there to be some regularity to that Top 25 ranking. That’s what people see, and those are the scores that are labeled from around the country.