Tuesday, December 6, 2016

On the Recent Unpleasantries

Never fails. The team strings together losses, folks start tweeting at WaP that we're not hard enough on the coaching staff. The team strings together wins, folks start tweeting at WaP that we're too hard on the coaching staff. Both are usually completely unreasonable, and the more extreme the strings, the more unreasonable the shouting.

We've chosen to be agnostic on the coaching staff. We're not going to advocate for either their retention nor their release. It's a departure from where we were when the site began, when we supported the coaching staff against, quite frankly, attacks that were beyond ridiculous given the circumstances at that time.

But here's all that really needs to be said, and it's something I told a friend about a month ago: "something needs to change, or something needs to change."

Take that for what you will.

We've endured some bad RPI teams in the past - but often times, those teams were just bad and the response among reasonable folks was always "well, they're just not good right now."

This year's team is outdoing so many of those other bad teams in producing bad results, but it's been even a step farther now. This squad as the talent to be far better than it has been in other years where the team put up L after L - and there's no really good reason why they haven't been.

In the past, where there have been plausible excuses for falling far too short: running into hot teams at the wrong time, a rise in the number of strong teams in the ECAC, injuries riddling the squad, there's always been something that could be pointed to that says "OK, that's a bad break."

What is it now?

Something needs to change, or something needs to change.