Business Insight Zone

As we mentioned the other day, tonight the Longhorns of my beloved alma mater play against Arizona State in the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl. Texas is no stranger to the Holiday Bowl — this is their fourth trip there during the 2000s. If the Longhorns win, they’ll take their season record to 10-3 and their current bowl winning streak to four games.

The crazy thing is, a loss would make this season a profound disappointment for many Longhorns fans. The Horns have won ten games or more every year since 2001, a run of success that includes back-to-back Rose Bowl wins — the second of which earned them the national championship three years ago.

But this season, Texas lost to both Oklahoma and Texas A&M. A bowl loss would add insult to those injuries. Because of the high expectations put on the team and its head coach, Mack Brown, a 9-4 record counts as failure, plain and simple. This is true even though many coaches would gladly trade places — and won-loss records — with Brown.

This reminds me of the treatment that some companies get when they report increases in revenues and profits . . . but not increases as high as Wall Street was hoping. In cases like this, investors often drive down stock prices, which seems unwarranted in the face of record-high financial numbers, but which reflects the costs of high expectations.

Sky-high expectations mean that, win or lose tonight, the Longhorns and their fans are already thinking about next year.  It’s the price you pay when you keep raising the bar on yourself.