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The Case for Ball State Being Better than Alabama

Nick Saban is no fan of math, science, and therefore America

Remember the transitive property in elementary math classes? If A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, then by the transitive property, A is always greater than C. The transitive property is one of those things that is useful in math and not much else, but football fans have been trying to shoehorn the transitive property into their football lives for a while now. If Team A beats Team B, and Team B beats TeamC, then in theory, Team A is a better team than Team C. Especially if Team C is Buffalo.

Now, this is not an exact science. In fact, there’s nothing even remotely scientific about it. However, the transitive property has some interesting results when you evaluate it for our Ball State Cardinals and everyone’s “ERMAHGERD!!! #1 BEST EVAH!” team of the year… the Alabama Crimson Tide. We’ll come back to this in a bit.

The trouble with the transitive property is that teams have to have losses for this little experiment to work. Alabama doesn’t. What to do, then, huh? RIDDLE ME THAT! Simple, really and it all comes down to two words: common opponents. Say for example, Team A and Team B are attempting to compare themselves. Team A and Team B have only one common opponent, Team C. Team A beat Team C by 20 points, Team B beat Team C by 50 points. It would stand to reason, then, that Team B>Team A. Probably even more unscientific and wildly offbase than the transitive property to begin with, but let’s not split hairs, shall we?

Let’s get into some real world application. Say you’re a BSU fan and one of your coworkers is an Alabama fan. How do you tolerate him at work? Especially now that Bama continues to roll up national titles. He walks around all day in his houndstooth hats/shirts/jackets/boxers and consistently yells “Roll Tide!” at literally everything. Successful collation? “ROLL TIDE!” Found his favorite rubber band ball? “ROLL TIDE!” Meeting let out early? “ROLL TIDE!” Epic BM? “ROLL TIDE!” How can you shut him up? By making the statement and proving the point that thanks to math Ball State is actually better than Alabama.

SHOW YOUR WORK

  • The mighty Cardinals beat Central Michigan 41-30
  • Central Michigan beat Iowa 32-31
  • Iowa beat Northern Illinois 18-17
  • By the comparison test above, Northern Illinois is better than Georgia since NIU beat Buffalo by 42 and Georgia only managed a 22 point assthrashing of the Bulls.
  • Using the comparison test further, Georgia is better than Alabama because it owns a 36 point beating of FAU for the Dawgs, compared to only 33 for the Tide.

Therefore, vis-a-vis, Ball State is in fact better than the Alabama Crimson Tide. Of course, the media will never report this. The SEC with their siren song of five-star recruits and sundressed coeds in the stands generates the headlines and ink and the fancy things like BCS rankings, crystal football trophies, and respect. But people should be wary of those that discount the above logic out of hand. In reality, that’s disregarding math. What’s next? Throwing science out the window? And if you hate on math and science and find no use for them in such important matters, aren’t you really indicting the entire educational system? In reality, isn’t this an indictment of our  American society? I put it to you Alabama fans. You can say what you want about the Mid American Conference and Ball State University, but I won’t sit here and let you badmouth the United States of America!

BSU and Conference Expansion

SECRETARY!!!!

Yes, Mr. Collins?

Where are my messages, secretary? I’m sure with all this conference expansion there are numerous people to call back, deals to make, and flesh to press… metaphorically speaking. Tell me there are messages… please?

Yes, sir, there are messages that do demand your attention.

Fabulous, secretary! I’m going to sit at my desk while you read them to me. Proceed with these lucrative offers that I can dazzle our University administration with. Chop, chop.

The first message was from Big 10 commissioner Jim Delany.

This is it, secretary!!! The offer we’ve been waiting for! Kiss my white ass, Northern Illinois and Central Michigan! You won’t have BSU to kick around anymore. We’re going first class, bitches. Enjoy your stay in coach.

He wanted to know if you had any contacts at Nebraska. Or Notre Dame. Or Rutgers. Or Pitt. Or Maryland. Or Hanover. Or Taylor. Or Indianapolis Attucks. Which I’m pretty sure doesn’t even exist anymore. He said there was no reason, just curious.

That is exceptionally odd. If I weren’t the cunning mind that I am, I would think that they were passing us by. I think what is entirely likely is they are simply letting the other schools know that their fate rests in our hands. Of course! Brilliant!

Right…. the next message is from Larry Scott of the PAC 10.

Oh, baby! Screw the Big 10 and their shell games with those other losers. This is the big one. I can feel it!

He was also asking if you had any contact information for folks like Colorado, Boise State, TCU or Texas Tech. He also asked if we knew anyone at East Dillon or Dillon High School.

Fictional high schools? Conferences are opting to expand with fictional high schools before offering to us?!? I’m surprised Jacob and Edward didn’t come out and announce Folks High School was moving to the WAC.

Mountain West, sir.

Oh, come on!!! They don’t even exist! They’re only in those lame ass vampire books. We have a stadium, jerseys, footballs, and headsets for the staff! I mean, sure, we don’t have an office for our coaches. And we don’t have one of those fancy jumbotrons. And we only have 4 pissers in the entire place, but we’re a college. We are an institution of higher learning!!

Mike Slive from the SEC called as well sir.

Really? The SEC? As in, the premier conference in football? They want us? They want ME?! I knew it secretary!!! It was only a matter of time before we blew this bullshit MAC popsicle stand and hit the big time. It’s nothing but road trips with fine trim, delicious barbecue, and million dollar paydays! Eat shit, MAC!

Actually sir, they were just wondering how you do it.

Do what?

Shave every morning without slitting your own throat with a razor. Then he farted into the receiver and hung up.

*Blank stare* I…. *sigh*

There was also one other message, sir.

*Looks up hopefully, solitary tear forms in eye* Was it from the Big East? Conference USA? The fucking Sun Belt?! Anyone?

It was Whitlock, sir. He swallowed his phone again and misdialed you, but it’s a hysterical message. Want to hear it?

*sigh* *wipes tear* Of course.

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