Ralph Baer writes:
>Joseph A. Gherlone Jr., LT, USN wrote:
>>        i concur heartily about the new desire to win, but i'd caution
>> that it seems to be a long-standing tradition for the Engineers to be
>> overconfident and goof up in games they (and everyone else) expect them
>> to win.  words of warning to Coach Fridgen :-).
>
>Losing to significantly inferior teams has been a tradition for RPI
>ever since I was there, and probably before that.
 
I hate to say it, but all through this thread, I have been thinking
that you folks are all guilty of one thing: thinking that RPI is
better than they really are.  I can count on one hand the number of
teams in the last 10 years who went an entire season without losing
games they were "expected" to win.
 
Objectively...the truth is that since 1985, RPI has tended to be, on
average, about a 5th place team in the ECAC, with 5 finishes above
and 4 below that position.  A team that is 5th in its league is going
to lose a number of games each year to teams that finish lower.  (I
arrived at 5th by taking their finishes from 1986-94, adding them, and
dividing by 9; 48/9 = 5.3.)
 
The 2nd and 3rd place finishes of the last two seasons mark 2 of the 3
years since 1985 that RPI has finished higher than 4th in the ECAC.
The team has been better in recent years than in the years immediately
following the 1985 title, but to be honest, they have never approached
anything near "untouchable" status like Maine in 1993 or Harvard in
1989 - such that they should never or hardly ever lose a game they are
expected to win.
 
>There is still no excuse for the loss to Army which has recently been
>having trouble with Div-III teams.
 
I didn't see the game, but I know Tom Morrison can tell you that I
I thought Army had a very good chance of beating RPI, based on what I
had seen from RPI against Merrimack.
 
Army is going to surprise some more people before the year is over,
especially if they get their top two scorers back; I believe Tom said
they were expected out for 4-6 weeks.  Since these two had dominated
scoring for Army thus far, it was not as much of a surprise that Army
lost to Hobart last weekend.  But that's the only time Army had
trouble with a DivIII team this year, and it can be explained by
injuries.
 
Please note I'm not taking shots at RPI or their fans, just trying to
give a different perspective from an unbiased observer of the scene.
I believe that this feeling RPI followers seem to have, that their team
often loses to inferior teams, is peculiar to them - rather than there
being a problem peculiar to the team.  I don't hear it from followers
of other teams, at least not nearly as often.  RPI followers might
need to consider whether they expect and/or demand too much from their
team - something I have believed has been going on in the Capital
District for years, ever since I was there - and whether those demands
create pressure that is inevitably going to affect RPI in ways it
doesn't affect other teams.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                                            [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93