Fallacy of the transitive property in football

[MililaniBuckeye]

So many people use the transitive property (A beat B who beat C who beat D, so A is better than/will beat D) to justify their rankings as to which team is better, or sometimes, to predict who will win a football game. In many instances it just doesn't work. For example, East Carolina is playing Cincinnati at this moment. Using the transitive property prior to the game, you'd expect East Carolina to win, because:

East Carolina smoked Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech beat Ohio State
Ohio State smoked Cincinnati

Right, well as of this moment, Cincinnati currently leads East Carolina 31-20 at half.

There have been other such comparisons made here on BP, but with the search function not working right now I figured I'd start a thread on the subject for others to post similar faulty transitive-property comparions.

 

[Thump]

So many people use the transitive property (A beat B who beat C who beat D, so A is better than/will beat D) to justify their rankings as to which team is better, or sometimes, to predict who will win a football game. In many instances it just doesn't work. For example, East Carolina is playing Cincinnati at this moment. Using the transitive property prior to the game, you'd expect East Carolina to win, because:

East Carolina smoked Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech beat Ohio State
Ohio State smoked Cincinnati

Right, well as of this moment, Cincinnati currently leads East Carolina 31-20 at half.

There have been other such comparisons made here on BP, but with the search function not working right now I figured I'd start a thread on the subject for others to post similar faulty transitive-property comparions.

Why is the function still down anyways?

 

[Saw31]

Temple beat East Carolina.
East Carolina beat Va Tech.
Va. Tech beat Ohio State.
Ohio State beat Ped State.

Therefore Temple will smoke Ped State! I need to believe! Fuck off Mili!

 

[Saw31]

That would make Ped State 1 - 2 in Joesus' All Eastern Conference.

Would make me happy.

 

[Dryden]

Why is the function still down anyways?

Can't afford the plutonium for the flux capacitor.

 

[buckeyebri]

Can't afford the plutonium for the flux capacitor.

Or the 1.21 Gigawatts...

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

Fuck off Mili!

Asshole

 

[jlb1705]

The ACC managed to accomplish this feat by mid-October:

 

[Oh8ch]

I had a cousin who was a transvestite and he owned lots of property.

What am I missing?

 

[LovelandBuckeye]

The ACC managed to accomplish this feat by mid-October:

So, you are saying Pitt would beat Ohio State or that Mark May blew five dudes while at Pitt?

 

[Zurp]

Michigan beat Penn State, who beat Rutgers, who beat Michigan.
2005: Penn State beat Ohio State, who beat Michigan, who beat Penn State.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

The ACC managed to accomplish this feat by mid-October:

 

[lvbuckeye]

That would make Ped State 1 - 2 in Joesus' All Eastern Conference.

Would make me happy.

And would be a huge hit against the B1G...
As much as I hate Ped State, them losing to Temple would be a freaking disaster for The Ohio State.

 

[Thump]

I prefer the commutative property of football.

scUM + MSU = W

&

MSU + scUM= W

 

[AKAK]

I had a cousin who was a transvestite and he owned lots of property.

What am I missing?

So now the transvestite property is fallacious?