Following the Compass 2022

Among the lease importatnt things that COVID impacted, Following the Compass got really weird. A very good Alabama basketball team got their game against Arkansas in just after the 2020 Super Bowl, AKA pre-Covid, and then it got odd. South Alabama basketball saw their game postponed all the way to January 2021, which meant that the 2020 second game came after the first 2021 game. South Alabama beat Flagler College, while the New York Giants, still in a crowd limited stadium, played the Dallas Cowboys in East Rutherford. 

The Giants upended Cowboys, which helped to give the division to Washington Football Team. It wasn't a really big deal in the grand scheme of things, but Washington was the last real threat to Tom Brady's Super Bowl run. The Giants don't look much better this year, though at least Saquon Barkley is back. 

The other team was the Colorado Rapids. The Rapids were one of the surprises of the MLS season, putting together an unexpectedly solid season and earning the #1 seed in the Western Conference of the MLS playoffs. OK, by solid, I should have said "exceptional, especially for a team many thought would be an also-ran". The game I drew was their road engagement with Real Salt Lake. I didn't go, because of a family surgery around that time, but Colorado was unceremoniously dumped by RSL. The Rapids historically have had a tough time playing in Sandy, Utah, and it was no exception in October, as they lost 3-1. Also, the Rapids faced a white hot Portland Timbers squad that bounced Colorado without a victory in the postseason. Not very good under my watchful eye.

But that was 2020 and 2021. I think 2022 is going to be a bit more normal. In fact, I think I'm as locked and loaded for at least the first game as I can be. The first team I drew was the University of North Carolina's football team. I pulled their basketball team a few years ago, and watched them play Tulane in Chapel Hill. This time, the Tar Heels will be on the road, playing in state rival Appalachian State on September 3rd. If I can get tickets, I will be there, but the in state game at a smaller stadium over Labor Day weekend might be tough. I'm going to try. 

UNC looks good next year, thanks to a strong defense, while Appalachian State always punches above their weight, and will be tough at home. I'm hoping to be in Boone, NC for this one.

The other game will probably be easier to get tickets for, but falls in a tougher travel period. I drew game 13 on the schedule for South Carolina - Upstate. That would put the game somewhere in late December 2022, likely after Christmas. In the past, they have played teams like VMI or local non D-1 schools on the last weekend of the year. Since this will be next years schedule, I will probably have to wait until next fall to know for sure if attendance is even feasible, but USCU is near Spartanburg, and is just the type of small school I love visiting. They don't have a long track record, and especially not one of success, but they are in the Atlantic sun which is a fun conference in general. 

I really hope to get to these games. I just hope travel is a better possibility in 2021. 

Pete Davidson is doing just fine.

 It was surprising to hear, a few years ago, that Pete Davidson was dating Ariana Grande, because he didn't seem like the type to have a famous girlfriend. And then he dated Kate Beckinsale, and it sounds like he has dated every famous daughter of a famous person, so maybe it isn't that surprising that he had so many famous significant others.

Now, he is apparently with Kim Kardashian, perhaps the most famous daughter of a famous person out there. It makes sense for her, I guess. If you are in a relationship that ends, sometimes you just want to find something completely different. Kanye West is one of the most self serious people out there, and Davidson is absolutely not. 

But I digress. What I really wanted to do was share last night's "Walkin' in Staten". I won't spoil it, but there were surprises, and they made me smile.

Who would have won a full season of 2020 college football?

 More than a decade ago when Steve Pallotto and I put together a series called "Blowing up college football". The premise was that people wanted a college football playoff, with teams then winning the championship based on actual games played on the field. Steve and I noticed that even when the BCS playoffs used a formula to pick the top 4 teams, the initial polls in the season carried a lot of weight. It wasn't actually fully won on the field. In hindsight, we have seen Central Florida go undefeated and still not be given a chance at the title, and Cincinnati, undefeated, is still not in position for the playoffs, because they play in the wrong conferences.

Of course, now, the imperative has changed thanks to the dawning of the super conference. People, especially in the southeast, are irritated that people would even think that a 2 loss Alabama would miss the playoff to an undefeated Cincinnati. "Why not put the 4 best teams in the playoff?" they say. So much for letting it play out on the field. 

Well, to me, solving it on the field still matters, and I think all those years ago, we figured out how to do that. To summarize, we broke everything up into geographically apportioned conferences, and every team played each other once. Out of conference games are played in order to help determine the strength of conferences and providing seeding for teams when the playoffs arrive. When I say things are determined on the field, I mean it. Everything we can think of, if we could solve it on the field, we would. 

I didn't touch on the 2019 simulated season, (Joe Burrow's LSU beat Georgia in the championship, with Oklahoma and USC reaching the semifinals) but I figured since 2020 was a wash, it would be cathartic to review the 2020 simulated season. 

Unless you are a Gophers fan. Their lackluster season was reflected in the simulation (done on Whatifsports), where the team went 1-11, and surely would not have earned PJ Fleck an extension. Conversely, Purdue win the Great Lakes conference (over every Indiana school but the Indiana University, and all the Michigan schools) perhaps fortelling their success in 2021. The Boilermakers were the 10 seed in the tournament and were felled by Florida. 

Florida eventually made the semifinals as well, joining Clemson, Brigham Young and Alabama. It was a banner year for Group of 5 schools, as Memphis, San Diego State, Louisiana, Air Force, Brigham Young, Marshall and Buffalo all reached the tournament. Alabama and Florida were the only two SEC schools, which is the same number of schools as the Mountain West. The Big Ten was the leader with 4 teams (Ohio State, Purdue, Indiana and Rutgers, which is not a ringing endorsement for football in the mid-Atlantic). 

Of course, none of the Big Ten teams made it out of the 2nd round, and the only time an SEC team lost, it was to another SEC team. Alabama won the entire thing, defeating Brigham Young for the title. The final 4 featured three quarterbacks that were drafted high into the NFL in Trevor Lawrence, Zack Wilson and Mac Jones, and I think that is a decent reflection of the state of the world American football right now. Quarterbacks are very important.

For 2021, the question of Cincinnati's inclusion in a potential playoff will be much more simple to navigate. They just need to win their conference, and they can figure it out on the field, and not rely on anyone's opinions. 

I'm ready for College hoops

 Tonight is opening night on the college basketball schedule, and if all goes as expected, this will be the first "normal" season, nose to tail since 2018-19. After two screwed up seasons, it will be good to level set one of my favorite sports after it was one of the first and most significantly disrupted sports by the Pandemic.

Covid-19 destroyed the 2020 NCAA basketball post season just recently underway when the whole world ground to a halt. First conference tournaments were scrubbed, then the rest of the league. While professional leagues later came back in bubbles later that summer, the 2020 NCAA season was just done and gone forever. Then, the beginning of the 2020-21 season was affected by the same problems the rest of the world was, with breakouts, delays and cancellations. VCU missed the tournament because of a late positive on their team.

This year? There shouldn't be as much, if any of that. College basketball will return to represent sports as chaos again, in such a good way. Today, there are a few big match ups, and a lot of games featuring huge disparities in talent, like Purdue's opener with Bellarmine, a small school from Louisville. It will offer the first samples of teams with big names choking away games against smaller teams, but will also be the first introduction to the best teams in the country. 

Purdue is one of the best squads in the country, and I'm excited about that, as you might imagine. Minnesota Gophers basketball was my first sports love, and even though they will likely be bad, they are a full on mystery, and I'm excited about that. St. Thomas is D-1 now, and I am excited to see them play. I have no Following the Compass teams for this season (it was the New York Giants and Colorado Rapids this season), but that's no matter, as I will still keep tabs on ever team I've tracked in the past, I'm sure, and I'm excited about that.

But mostly, I'm just excited that there will be basketball in gyms, at the right time of year again. I think that we have all learned a lot about preventing and mitigating the spread of contagious diseases, and of course, are finding more and more people getting vaccinated, so it will be safer this season. There will be games on my TV almost every night I want them to be on. We've been grasping for normal for almost 2 years now, and by God, tonight's excitement feels normal. 

A show that isn't Ted Lasso, but is still good.

 I'm not someone who binges TV shows. I don't have the patience or attention span to stay with the same show over the course of a week, or whatever, but I will watch the season of a show released every week (like The Mandalorian) but because a couple of factors, (I'm watching with my wife and the shows are really good) I've recently gone through two shows with the aggressive passion that we are supposed to this day in age.

The first show is Ted Lasso, but if Halloween has taught us anything, it is that we are all pretty saturated with Ted Lasso. If you haven't watched the show, I recommend it, because you will like it. It's widely acclaimed, so that is a pretty common opinion. I am not a fan of sports shows or movies, and even I like it. So yes, it's good, but you probably already know that, or are sick of hearing that. 

I am here to tell you to watch Netflix's Sex Education. Like Ted Lasso, it isn't quite what you would expect going in, and the first few scenes, and the first couple of episodes definitely lend to the belief that it is a raunchy, graphic show, that caters to the basest TV watchers, but as it progresses, you find that it is a smart character study of a diverse cast. 

Like Ted Lasso, Sex Education takes place in England and is smarter than one would expect. It looks at the lives of promiscuous high school students and their families. The show starts focused on Otis Milburne (Asa Butterfield) and his mother, Jean (Gillian Anderson) but expands its scope to include a vast array of characters that it never forgets, even if they were introduced in a seemingly secondary manner earlier in a given season. And all of the characters are complex.

The show is funny. It's a different brand of humor, certainly, than what Ted Lasso offers, but it also deals with very serious topics related to sexual health, gender identity, classism and bullying, but never feels as heavy as all that sounds. Still, it has a heart, brought to pass because it respects every character and allows us to connect with each of them. I'm surprised it hasn't ever received the acclaim of other shows, but that might just be because of the name.

I know that I've drawn comparisons to Ted Lasso at every turn, so here is one last one for you to take note of if and when you start watching the Sex Education. One of the main characters on Lasso has a small role on Sex Education as well. Can you spot them? Give it a shot, because you should give Sex Education a shot. 

St. Thomas is here

Obviously, St. Thomas has always been here, but specifically I mean that St. Thomas has a Division One college institution. They've started playing their first games as an FCS football team, and even had their first hockey games against in-state rivals St. Cloud State. Of course. St. Cloud isn't really a rival, because St. Thomas in all other sports is a D-1 institution, and St. Cloud is only D-2 (and significantly better at hockey).

Pardon my giggling, but I've always thought that the state of Minnesota needed another D-1 institution. It was strange that Hawai'i, Wyoming and Vermont were the only other three states with but one D-1 school, especially given Minnesota's size, both population and physical. The real lift for me, personally is in college basketball, and I am enthusiastically looking forward to the Tommies taking the court and joining the Summit League. Sure, it will be 6 years until they are post season eligible, but heck, they still might be the next Minnesota team to reach the Big Dance.

The Tommies' basketball schedule is out, and I intend to catch at least a couple of games, if I can. I was curious to see if they would have any Major conference foes in their first year as a D-1 establishment, and the answer is no, they will not. They have three mid-Majors on the calendar though. Fordham out of the A-10 comes as their third game and provides the team with a trip to New York City in year one. The only local school to play the Tommies in a non-con game is Drake, who play in the Missouri Valley. 

The Tommies do play in an invitational, headed to Youngstown State along with Niagara and Southern Illinois (also from the Mssouri Valley) in November. This will be part of a very long road trip to start the season, with stops in Chicago, New York and Seattle before coming home to play Crown College. Not a D-1 school, but their first home game as a D-1 institution. 

Their first game at all in D-1 is at Chicago State, which as been one of the worst teams in college basketball since they moved up. It's a real opportunity for the Tommies to start with a win. They aren't playing many top tier teams, but the travel will be grueling early on, which may be enough to put them behind the 8-ball before the conference schedule gets underway.

They have one D-1 non conference opponent (Montana State) before they start Summit League play, and a few sub-D-1 opponents. Conference play will be interesting. The Summit League is home to all 4 teams from the Dakotas, including North Dakota State and South Dakota State, the strongest of the bunch. Also, Oral Roberts, Cinderella of the 2021 tournament, will come to St. Paul in February. 

The Tommies might be pretty bad this year and for a few more to come, but in 6 years, they very well could be running the Summit League, ready to make the Big Dance. Enjoy the growing pains and every small win this year. It's fun. Small schools are fun. 

Tuesday

When I was in high school, I always wanted to do something that separated myself from others. I wanted to be interesting, somehow, some way. As I approached the end of my time in high school, I'd also made the decision to go into meteorology, and I wanted to move away from home, the only one I had lived in since I was 3. It was time, I thought, to move on. In the end, all of those goals came together, and uniquely, I was the only member of my high school class to go to Purdue University, three states away, to get my meteorology degree.

I was one of the first of my friends to leave for college, going down there in mid-August. By the beginning of September, I had been down there long enough to get to my first college exam, but not long enough, as yet, to make any real close friends. Still, I knew those friends would come, and I didn't regret my decision to go to Purdue. 

My first exam was scheduled for Tuesday evening. I only had one class on Tuesdays, a review class that I intended to skip and study all day for the test instead, after making sure I was well rested. That Tuesday morning, my roommate's friend called, and woke me up. My roommate was already at class, so his friend, Jon, told me instead. In his words, there were "planes crashing everywhere, into the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, one somewhere in Pennsylvania." 

Three weeks into adulthood, 9/11 happened. 

My dad was still working with the FAA at the time. I tried him first on the room's ground phone, but good luck getting a hold of the FAA on that day. I called home to no answer. My mom was working as a child psychologist in the local school district. It turned out my dad was off that day, and was golfing. He shot the best round of his life that day, and still has the ball, scrawled with the date and his score. It's in poor taste, of course, but fortunately out of the eyes of most visitors.

My mom had a cell phone, so I tried that, but the cell networks were overwhelmed. I tried to call my aunt and uncle, whose numbers I actually knew, and left a frantic message on their answering machine that nobody has ever spoken of, and I have never heard. Everyone was terrified that day,

So then, I finally turned on the TV, and sat . there mesmerized, all day, alone. My roommate came back, sat in our inflatable chair, and watched for a bit with me, then went to go be with his friends. I don't know when I finally talked to my family, but I think it was days later.

The test wasn't cancelled. It was in the Elliott Hall of Music, and I'm sure there were space issues. We all went in and took, for many of us, our first college exam. We were all zombies. There was no nervous energy, just mourning ahead of this test. I failed it. I'm surprised some people didn't. 

The next day, they did have a vigil for those lost in the tragedy the morning before, in the same facility I had my test the night before. I made an effort to go, but there was no room when we arrived. Classes were not suspended at Purdue as they were at many other campuses. At a communications class the next morning, the teacher asked if anyone wanted to talk about the day before. I think some people spoke up, but not many did.

My department faculty advisor called me when the grade on my test came back, and wanted to make sure I was adjusting to college OK. My test had been on Tuesday, I explained. "Oh. Yeah." 

I was going to meet some friends that weekend who attended Notre Dame or St. Mary's and were all coming to West Lafayette to watch the Purdue Notre Dame game scheduled for the weekend. It was one of the few things at Purdue that was cancelled. I don't think I've spoken to any of those friends since then. 

So that's how dealt with one of the worst days in American history. Alone and with very little structural support.

9/11 is such a visceral, terrible factor in everyone's lives. There are so many people in New York and Washington who endured the terror of tangible danger, and those that lost someone close on that day. The direction of the country was forever changed, and there is a direct line from 9/11/2001 to 9/11/2021, even how we stand divided and unable to wrap our hands around the ongoing crises of our time. Many families sent sons and daughters to war, or were impacted financially by subsequent economic strife. 

But everyone has a personal story, and everyone has their own personal trauma. I still am accustomed to dealing with negative emotions on my own. Even today, 20 years later, I can feel the ache of loneliness that I felt 20 years ago. Frightened of a world that was bigger than I ever imagined. 

We all dealt with something that day. Most of us are still dealing with some of it. Today, even as my kids are driving me nuts, I will make sure to hug them a little bit tighter.