EXPECTATIONS

One of the toughest jobs of a coach is to manage the expectations of his team. When expectations are too high, no matter how much success you do have, not meeting all of your goals can be seen as a failure. Set expectations too low and you can give your team a feeling of hopelessness that they might not recover from. So, there is an interesting balance between being hopeful and being realistic that must be struck.

So, what are the expectations for the 2009 Vermont Ice Storm? After this weekend's 32-14 defeat at the hands of the Southern Vermont Storm, I'm sure that many of the Ice Storm faithful are a bit nervous. After all, wasn't this team 30-2 over the past two seasons and played for two national championships? Shouldn't we expect this year's Ice Storm to follow up with another run at the nationals? Hold on a sec, and let's take a closer look.

Imagine, for a moment, that we're discussing your favorite college football team. This team isn't one of the really big schools, but a team that is usually not at the top but consistently "in the mix". Then the team goes on a magical run: four years where they finish at the top of their conference and play in major bowls. But this year, the team is losing its coaching staff and 15 of its 22 starters. A team that was once dominated by upperclassmen now has freshmen and sophomores at most of its starting positions. How would you say they would do? Probably not too bad, but probably not as good as the previous four years either.

Similarly, this isn't the Ice Storm team of 2007 or 2008. When you open your programs this season, you'll see many new names and you'll struggle for a few games to get used to the new numbers in new positions. Although most of our number one's have been around for a few years, they will be starting together for the first time. Those who saw the game at Southern Vermont could see that, while we did make some great plays, we struggled to achieve total cohesion and balance last Saturday.

I have no doubt that this team will hit their stride, but when that stride will be hit is the big question. I sure hope it's sooner than later, but the truth of life is that you never really know. What I do know is that this team continues to work hard every day to compete for a championship. I also know that once things start to click with this team we'll be very, very hard to beat.

I expect that we'll be the underdogs in every game we play this year. I expect that we'll get off to a slow start, but it won't take long for us to put all the pieces together. I expect us to make a lot of noise near the end of the season and into the playoffs. Will I be right? I expect we'll find out!