From the Fringe: We get expectations wrong; Just look at this Cat-Griz season

Expectations can fool us all sometimes. Coaches, players, pundits, fans, we all get it wrong, probably more often than we get it right.

    Take the Montana State Bobcats for example. Would anyone really expect the Cats to be the third-ranked team in the FCS at the start of November after a run to the FCS championship game just one year earlier?

    Honestly, to expect that the Cats might be a better football team in 2022 than they were in 2021 would have been pretty unreasonable to start the season, if for no other reason than, they graduated arguably the greatest football player in Montana State history - the man, the myth, the legend, Troy Andersen. Troy heading off to the NFL alone should have meant the Cats should not have been as good this season.

    MSU also lost Daniel Hardy and Lance McCutcheon, as well as an All-American offensive lineman to graduation as well, not to mention, Isaiah Ifanse to a major knee injury. Couple that with a young offensive line, a rebuilt defense, and Tommy Mellott being just a sophomore, and there was just no way the Cats were going to be this good.

    I even think Brent Vigen likely didn't see this coming. So much talent gone. So much poured into last season. There was bound to be a letdown? In fact, the Cats were only picked to finish fourth this season by all Big Sky Conference pundits, and yet, here they are, unbeaten, tied for first and with just three games to go.

Expectations, right.

The Montana Grizzlies had high expectations this season, and it looks like, perhaps a bit too high.

I remember back in May, head coach Bobby Hauck at Tilleman Motors for the Grizzly GSA Lunch talking about how talented the 2022 Griz were. More so, he talked about how much he just loved coaching them. It was a lot of fun to listen to Bobby pontificate about the coming season. Fast forward to July, and nothing had changed. At the Big Sky Conference Kickoff in Spokane, the Griz were picked to win the Big Sky, and Hauck, while never putting stock in polls and predictions, was just as confident about how good his Grizzlies were going to be this fall.

Now, we're in November, and Montana is not going to win the Big Sky. It's almost mathematically impossible at this point. Instead, pundits are wondering if the Grizzlies will even make the playoffs at the end of this month, or will they be home for Thanksgiving? 

Three-game losing streaks, as rare as they are at Montana, will do that to a team - they'll completely derail this lofty expectations that came with the start of the 2022 Griz' season.

Sky high expectations two months ago, now, fans are literally wondering if the Griz are going to be able to beat 1-7 Cal Poly this Saturday. 

My how quickly things change, and the expectations have for the Griz. Hauck is still confident, believes the Griz are a very good team, and he's right, they are. They're just not the team most of us thought they were when the demolished Northwestern State back on Sept. 3. 

In other words, and for whatever reasons, the Griz didn't meet, or exceed those expectations that they startled with. Instead, for the time being, they fell short. Across the divide, the Cats, at this point, have exceeded our expectations.

And that's the funny thing about expectations - you never know how it's going to turn out. Because lets face it, if any of us really knew, if any of really did have a crystal ball, well we'd be in a different tax bracket, that's for sure.

Note: The No. 3 Bobcats travel to Northern Arizona Saturday. The game kicks off at 2 p.m. and will be televised on all MTN affiliates. The No. 16 Grizzlies host Cal Poly Saturday night at 6 p.m. That game is also on MTN.