A Look Back On Football's Transitive Property

Oregon State fans celebrating at halftime (RPPC, Personal collection)

Much of the fun of football and sports comes from the belief that my team is better than yours, and one way fans have convinced themselves that their team might win is through comparative scores. But, of course, comparative scores have their limit, and some comparisons are better than others. Still, the most straightforward ranking system and most sophisticated computer model both boil down to comparing one team's scores against another's.

Comparative scores cannot account for upsets and chance effects, matchups, injuries, doubleheader games with second teams losing to a lesser opponent, home and away games, or teams improving or declining during a season.

From the beginning, newspaper reporters using comparative scores recognized the process had faults and often inserted a caveat such as "If comparative scores mean anything..." Post-caveat, they plowed forward with the argument they planned to make anyway