Good morning, sports fans. This is it. It’s time to lay it all on the line for the Eastern football team.

Wow, what a difference a year makes. Last season at this time many Panther fans were thinking the season would be a success if they went 4-6 or something like that. Anything would have been an improvement from the previous year.

But now the Panthers are the No. 10 team in the nation and have the weight of the world on their shoulders, and rightfully so.

This is the team that everyone has been talking about for two years. Even when Eastern could have been beaten by Chucktown High School, everyone associated with the team said in two years and the team would be back to its prominence.

So the fans and the media sat and watched last season as the Panthers came out a year early from their losing ways and made a playoff appearance, losing in the first round of the playoffs to No. 1 seed and eventual national runner-up Montana.

Then this spring when the schedule for the 2001 season came out, I remember saying to myself, “This team shouldn’t lose a game.”

The only two squads on the schedule that could even give the Panthers some competition are San Diego State and Illinois State, but other than that Eastern should destroy every team it plays.

It’s not like the schedule is weak this season by any means. It is just that Eastern is that good, or should be.

If they don’t go through the Ohio Valley Conference season undefeated it will be a huge disappointment, and the players know it. A conference title should be a given.

I’m not saying anything that the players don’t already know it, or haven’t already said it. It’s just the nature of the beast that comes with winning and being talented.

This is a lot of pressure to put on young men, who are playing a kid’s game. I know I wouldn’t want to deal with it. But their success last season has brought it on, and I think they like the fact that they are the hunted instead of being the hunter.

But now it’s time for this team to forget all the hype, and play like they are expected to. I don’t think there’s a doubt that they will.