I stumbled across Ken Goe’s column on Oregon Live yesterday and was chuckling my way through his conference-centric rant about how USC deserved a better opponent in the Rose Bowl, when he inadvertently reminded me how dumb alleged professional sportswriters can be.
Just when we thought it was safe to trust an “expert” on anything, Goe blindsides us with the transitive property as the supporting evidence for giving USC a shot at the national title!
For those of you who didn’t have a goofy, rhyming, Pakistani 10th grade geometry teacher, let me loosely review the transitive property for you. Angle A = Angle B, Angle B = Angle C, therefore Angle A = Angle C. It’s as airtight a geometric proof as you’ll find. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work so well for sports…in fact, it’s about as dumb an argument as you can make.
Consider…
I’m 3-0 lifetime in playground football against 2005 Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association Offensive Player of the Year Steve Wasil. Earlier this year, Wasil was outdueling legendary former OhioState quarterback Stanley Jackson in a Continental Indoor Football League, up 20-3 when Wasil left the game due to injury. In 1994, Jackson was a backup when the Buckeyes beat Michigan and QB Todd Collins 22-6. Todd Collins is now the starting QB for the Washington Redskins, so if you follow the transitive property there, I should be starting this weekend for one of the NFL playoff teams based on Goe’s logic.
If you know me and have seen my combine numbers (which are readily available here), then you know that while I may be a nightmare matchup for a safety or linebacker in pass coverage, I’m neither gunslinger nor game manager under center. I have a few more degrees in my transitive property than Goe does, but it still falls within the 6 degrees that I believe is the international standard for discussions like this.
Goe goes on to say that, “The Trojans have the same number of losses as LSU, but were shunted aside by the goofy BCS selection process.” Uhhh Ken? The BCS is goofier than just putting teams with the same number of losses in the national title game? You’d rather that either A) Hawaii is just named the national champion without playing since they were unbeaten before Tuesday night, or B) Hawaii plays against the winner of an Ohio State/Kansas (both one loss) one game playoff is what you’re telling me. First of all your reasoning is stupid, and second of all it technically doesn’t even get USC in the championship game. Cry about the BCS if you want, but just cry. Don’t try to apply logic that doesn’t make any sense to your arguments. Most people in American aren’t allowed to keep their jobs if they’re bad at it, so please don’t make them feel bad that you still have yours.
I’ll close by taking the transitive property one step further in honor of Goe. In 1994, Todd Collins was starting over Brian Greise, who ended up starting over Tom Brady who just finished probably the greatest season by a QB in NFL history. Maybe I’m in the wrong line of work, eh Kenny?
Tenacious E
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