Quote from: Hotskull on November 04, 2025, 10:25:18 AMThis Tufts team is on a revenge tour. The last two years, they've been hyped up, carrying a top ranking all season, only to crumble when it really mattered. That will not happen this year. This team is full of certified DAWGS.
They've got one of the strongest and deepest backlines we've seen in recent years (.455 GA average / 8 clean sheets — shoutout Antic in goal), paired with an attack that finds the back of the net when it matters most. In previous years, Tufts often needed a set piece or an unsung hero to grind out a winner... Not this team. Yanez is 4/4 from the spot in the last six games (CR7-level clutch), and the front three (Perkins, Canfin, Brown) have combined for 33 points, while Jett, Shultz, Fallone, Denby, and others have put in lights-out performances.
DeZotell seems to have finally found the right balance with this roster — major credit to him and his staff. In a year where Amherst look like your local church-league team and Middlebury's backline resembles a bunch of cones standing in the way of opposing attackers, Tufts is playing like the juggernaut we've always known them to be.
If they go into the weekend with the mentality that they end other teams' seasons, not that they are the team to beat, there will be another NESCAC trophy in the cabinet. My advice to the young lads up in Medford: do not play with the timid mindset of "only two more guaranteed games." In fact, F$#K THAT.* Play like you want to flex the strength you have over these inferior, minuscule, delicate, and outright afraid NESCAC schools. Gents, it is Tufts vs. everybody, and there can only be one at the top.
I'll be flying up to Boston this weekend to watch the destruction.
To the rest of you NESCAC fans: You may read this and think I'm too confident — maybe even delusional. But if that's how you feel, I actually sympathize with you... because you're the one who's delusional for not seeing the greatness, hard work, grit, and — as stated before — a squad of DAWGS right in front of your eyes.
– Hotskull
This is one of the funniest posts I've seen on the boards. Tufts has had great regular seasons for the past two years and it's amounted to nothing for them. A first place team on a "revenge tour" playing a subpar Bates team in the first round usually doesn't end in a dicey 1-0 win from a penalty, which seems to be Tufts' favorite way to score this year. It looks more like Dezotell has found the right balance of whining from the bench and bribes for the refs than a good roster this year.
Tufts has already shown that they're not a playoff team again this year, so you can say they're "DAWGS" going into this weekend as much as you want, but that's not gonna change what they all know- this Middlebury team has been edging greatness for years and this is the year it will all come to fruition.
Until Dezotell gains the confidence to create a real soccer team that doesn't play straight up haram ball, I will never give him credit for being a good coach. My left big toe could coach a team to play on the counter and lump in long throws. Dezotell is an old school NESCAC coach, who's stuck in the past and can't see that the game is changing around him. We've already seen Tufts' Brexit counterpart in Amherst lose this postseason. Inverting Wingbacks and Xg are here to stay and if teams can't adapt, they'll be left in the dust of innovators like Middlebury.
-NESCAC Fan 🫡