More Fun With Victory Chain Linking

by SMQ on Jan 9, 2008 1:37 PM EST in News Comment 15 comments

With the games in the can, it’s time again, fans, for SMQ’s favorite offseason time-waster, courtesy the wonderful Victory Chain Linker. For all those blowhards who start down the path of "A > B and B > C so clearly A > C," you could point them to Florida, Tennessee and Georgia or Michigan, Penn State and Wisconsin, or you could point them to Division III Grinnell (1-9), last place finisher in the Midwest Conference, ranked No. 693 by Peter Wolfe, outscored by 238 points on the season, and your new mythical national champion:

**Grinnell over LSU (29 steps)**
	Grinnell	>	Lawrence	>	Knox	>	Eureka	>	Concordia IL	v
v	Kalamazoo	<</b>	Wisc.-Lutheran	<</b>	Concordia WI	<</b>	Greenville	<</b>	Benedictine IL
	Bluffton	>	Defiance	>	Anderson	>	Taylor	>	William Penn	v
v	Dayton	<</b>	Morehead St.	<</b>	Jacksonville FL	<</b>	Valparaiso	<</b>	Trinity Int'l
	Fordham	>	Colgate	>	Towson	>	Richmond	>	Wofford	v
	LSU	<</b>	Kentucky	<</b>	Florida	<</b>	Michigan	<</b>	App. State

Or the Division III SUNY-Maritime Privateers of Throggs Neck, NY, which finished 2-9 in their second year of varsity football, were outscored by 208 points and finished 684th in Wolfe’s rankings, against the other half of the mythical championship game:

**SUNY-Maritime over Ohio State (20 steps)**
	SUNY-Maritime	>	Salve Regina	>	West. New England	>	Hartwick	>	Ithaca	v
v	Marist	<</b>	Wagner	<</b>	Iona	<</b>	West. Conn. State	<</b>	Cortland State
	G'town D.C.	>	Bucknell	>	Fordham	>	Colgate	>	Towson	v
v	Illinois	<</b>	Michigan	<</b>	Appalachian State	<</b>	Wofford	<</b>	Richmond
	Ohio State

Or Division III Gallaudet, the world leader in liberal education and career development for deaf and hard-of-hearing undergraduate students, which finished 2-9, 682nd in Wolfe’s rankings and was outscored by 144 points, over Pac Ten and Rose Bowl champion Southern Cal:

**Gallaudet University over Southern Cal (21 steps)**
	Gallaudet	>	SUNY-Maritime	>	Salve Regina	>	West. New England	>	Hartwick	v
v	Wagner	<</b>	Iona	<</b>	West. Conn. State	<</b>	Cortland State	<</b>	Ithaca
	Marist	>	G'town D.C.	>	Bucknell	>	Fordham	>	Rhode Island	v
v	Notre Dame	<</b>	Navy	<</b>	Delaware	<</b>	Villanova	<</b>	UMass
	Stanford	>	Southern Cal

This is not quite as esoteric in the ranking of different teams as it seems. Notice all three chains from DIII flow through the same, or very similar, patterns, and two require the same "jump" from Division I-AA to I-A, Appalachian State over Michigan. There were six I-AA victories over I-A this season, meaning there is a very limited number of "victory chains" from any lower division team to any top division team. Almost any team with a win can be linked to any team with a loss, but as frequent commenter and stat guru Paul Kislanko pointed out last year, the fewer chains from Team A to Team B, and the longer the chain, the weaker Team A’s claim of superiority; the team with the shortest and most numerous chains is the stronger team.

For example, here’s USC’s chain over Gallaudet:

**Southern Cal over Gallaudet University (7 steps)**
Southern Cal	>	Idaho	>	Cal Poly SLO	>	Iona	>	Delaware Valley	v
						Gallaudet	<</b>	Juniata

USC gets there a little faster, mostly because it has so many divisions to jump. Because of its schedule, aside from the two teams that beat the Tigers head to head, LSU will likely have a shorter chain to almost any team in the country than the same team has to LSU.

One more, for fun:

**Michigan over Appalachian State (5 steps)**
Michigan	>	Florida	>	West. Kentucky	>	Chattanooga	>	Georgia Southern	v
								Appalachain State

They can dream, can’t they?

0 recs | Comment 15 comments

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Comments

The Alma Mater in SMQB

"Up Beyond the Village Border..."

For those of you who know...

Unreal...

Taylor Trojans on SMQB.

by tsell89 on Jan 9, 2008 2:11 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Links are busted

All of them start with the URL for this story followed by the real link in quotes.

by SpartanDan on Jan 9, 2008 6:18 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

OK Dan, fixed

Argh.

by SMQ on Jan 9, 2008 7:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Why it happens

If you're typing it up in Word, the "smart quotes" feature may be the problem - it replaces the actual " character with the curved quote marks, so browsers probably don't detect it as a quote and therefore take it as a relative link instead of an absolute one. Assuming you're doing that, try turning off the "smart quotes" feature when you're doing site work.

by SpartanDan on Jan 9, 2008 8:13 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not doing it in Word

Although something similar is happening when tables are involved, because the tables are all messed up if I post them on the first try. Just a glitch in the format.

by SMQ on Jan 9, 2008 8:23 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

All hail Tuskegee

The Tuskegee Tigers, the only team in all of the NCAA which went undefeated in 2007. Take that, LSU.

Of course, they weren't even the national champs in Division II.

by Tom on Jan 9, 2008 6:58 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Grinnell Football

As a Grinnell student, I must say thank you, SMQ. The Grinnell Victory Chain Link caused me to feel prideful about my football team for the first and possibly only time ever. It also caused me to laugh harder than I have all week. Here's to continued futility and continued appearances in a victory chain link. Considering that our top candidate for head coach is the current coach of the 682nd best team in the nation and we have no quarterback, I might have less to look forward to than any fan in the country. Except this.

by harrycaray22 on Jan 9, 2008 10:12 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

go Grinnell!

haha, another Grinnell grad here (now at Michigan, thus the football blog-reading ;)... go Grinnell! who would have thought? I once saw a football player during my time at Grinnell, and I was like, "hmm, I guess we DO have a team..." is the favorite chant at those games also "safety school! safety school!"? ;)

by jenlw on Jan 10, 2008 1:25 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

Grinnell

A "safety school, safety school" chant would require a lot more students to attend games so that a cheer could actually be audible. Those who go just sit and watch, or sit and do homework. It's quite an environment.

by harrycaray22 on Jan 10, 2008 1:49 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Kalamazoo

As a K-College alum, I have to say this is the first time my football team has made me proud...

by dantejones on Jan 10, 2008 9:35 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

1-AA wins

"There were six I-AA victories over I-A this season..."

Northern Iowa over Iowa State
Appalachian State over Michigan
North Dakota State over Minnesota
North Dakota State over Central Michigan
New Hampshire over Marshall
Nicholls State over Rice
Delaware over Navy
Southern Illinois over Northern Illinois
McNeese State over Louisiana-Lafayette

North Dakota State is only a "provisional" 1-AA member, but they are still a lower division team beating a 1-A team, and if their wins don't count, then we should count Western Kentucky's win over Middle Tennessee State (WKU is a provisional 1-A member).

by LD on Jan 10, 2008 9:52 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

I didn't count them

I took the record off another site that tracks these things. Obviously it didn't count North Dakota State's wins, though the chain linker would.

by SMQ on Jan 10, 2008 10:30 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

UNI FIGHT!

UNI fight! UNI fight!

As someone from lovely Cedar Falls, Iowa, I did take glee in explaining to Illinois fans that while Michigan had lost to App. State, Illinois had lost to Iowa, who had lost to Iowa State (without even scoring a touchdown!), who had lost to UNI... the team that had been defeated by App. State in the 1-AA National Championship Game circa 2005. Though I cheered for UNI to go all the way this year... Alas, twas not to be...

by jenlw on Jan 12, 2008 1:49 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Mizzou > Arkansas > LSU

LSU > Alabama > Colorado > Oklahoma > Mizzou

"LSU will likely have a shorter chain to almost any team in the country than the same team has to LSU."

Mizzou 2, LSU 4.

by ColinMacLeod on Jan 10, 2008 8:21 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

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