Photo Credit: AIC Athletics

For AIC Football, the sense around this team at media day is one of optimisim and growth. One thing that stood out in talking to the numerous players and coaches that took time out of their long days to chat is the sense of positivity this program has. They are working for new things and to build the program back to its level of success.

When you look at the banner for football NCAA tournament experiences in the Butova Gym, only two years are up there. The players and the coaching staff lead by Interim HC Dan Chipka want to change that.

Another thing that stood out about this off-season from this reporter’s perspective was clear in all the interviews. This staff has focused on family a lot more and on bringing groups together. In addition, this is the first year in a long while that AIC football has had a summer program of any sort for players wanting to work out with their brothers over the summer. Before this past summer they were one of two schools in the NE10 lacking that fact.

We have interviews with the leaders of this team that will be written up in the coming days as well as Coach Chipka and other AIC Coaches. One thing was clear from talking with everyone especially swiss-army knife defensive lineman Ben Lazo. AIC football knows who they are and know what building culture means once more. Ben made it clear that this team and staff believe not just that they can win any game, but that those watching will see a return of the AIC Family culture in how everyone does the little things. This team is lead by a few veterans on each side of the ball, and has a lot of challenges ahead of it, from playing perennial national championship contender Ferris State at Abdow Field near the end of September to playing in a league that usually sends only one representative to the national tournament.

For AIC Football this year, there are two things beyond the boxscore that this reporter and play by play broadcaster will be watching. How they handle adversity is item one , as they did last year against Southern Conneticut State with a goal line stop to win the game as one example. Item two to watch is simply body language, this team and it’s leaders all told me that how they handle things is that beyond the box score thing to watch. If the less than ideal happens and any opponent is up by an insurmountable lead , these players and coaches want to showcase that the effort remains the same. If this team can use some of its versatility and speed on offense to control time of possession a bit. Then they can be the ones to be causing adversity to more teams than anyone would expect them to.

The quest for AIC to prove a lot of people wrong takes it’s next step on September Seventh at noon against an up and coming Shippensburg team at Abdow field. Get out to watch the game as tickets are always affordable if you can, or tune into Flo Sports with some more things to watch than just the box score.

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