An Update on My Life

 Ipswich Town are enjoying their first Premier League season in 22 years and they are on the cusp of being in the thick of things as the calendar flips to 2025. 

This is what any club could ask for. A chance. With a population of 133,384 they are equivalent to the size of Abbotsford British Columbia Canada. This is why the EPL is so special. The impact of promotion and relegation have a lot of positive effects to the economy.

This is the first year in a few years where I have watched the EPL closely. My schedule has freed up enough on the weekends where I can watch the games. 

I'm blessed to be in that position. I'm going to be starting something new soon in 2025 but I'm trying to think of all the gratitude I have. 

Here are a few things that I have going for me. 

I have renewed my mortgage on my condo.

I am coaching Grade 9 basketball. 

I have different options ahead of me in 2025. 

I believe that I'll never be homeless. 

I have been able to manage risk in my investments. Will have more on this later. I want to let people know that risky stocks isn't so bad if you have a bit of breathing space in your bank account. 

I have found a good thing to look forward to with Ipswich Town soccer games. The Newcastle game feels like a make or break game with their schedule coming up. I'm nervous but at the same time I'm soaking in and reflecting on my accomplishments in my past and feeling very content. 

The Selection Committee Got it Right Except a Few Things

 The selection committee deliberated for many hours last night decided to leave out Alabama. This is the single greatest thing that has happened to College Football. 

Over the course of the decade, private schools like SMU have been at a disadvantage mostly because they aren't able to build a tough non conference schedule. For instance, TCU was left off the 4 team playoff in 2014 with their only one loss by three points to Baylor. That circumstance gave me a lot of bad vibes with the exclusive semi finals that seemed to only feature the same teams every year. 

The reason why Strength of Schedule (SOS) shouldn't matter is that SMU doesn't have the same resources that Alabama has. Alabama played a few average teams that they should have beaten or at least been competitive in. 

SMU ran the table outside of two competitive losses to two 10 win teams. They were rewarded for being a Top 2 team in there conference and not punished for playing one extra game. 

Alabama had all the chances to win but losing to Vanderbilt and then to Oklahoma was too hard to ignore.                                                                                

The message with the 4 team playoff was always 1 loss power 5 always trumped 2 loss team with a tougher schedule. That standard remained the same. The committee also didn't punish teams for having a week conference slate. I don't think Indiana is one of the best 7 at large teams but no one can take

away their 11-1 record and giving Ohio State a run for their money for a quarter and a half. 

Huge win for College Football and huge win for small schools like SMU and Arizona State. Those schools could only dream of winning a national title 5 years ago. 

One thing I really think they need to change is head to head should be weighted more. It's a joke how the best team in college football has a hardest draw. No reason why Penn State is 6 and Ohio State is 8 when Ohio State won in Penn State. Decide the 12 teams and have slightly different metrics for seeding. NCAA Basketball does this all the time. 

Lastly, rematches should be avoided until Semis when possible.