Tuesday Trivia: Improbable Winning Streaks

Welcome to the second edition of our Tuesday Trivia feature. In the first edition we examined the state of parity in college football. Today's edition has a similar theme: the most improbable winning streaks over the last several years. This is an extension of the very first trivia feature we did, examining the most improbable upsets over the last eight years.

As a reminder, there are some ground rules in identifying these streaks. They will:

• span the 2003-2004 to 2011-2012 seasons;
• exclude August and September games; each year the computer needs a few weeks to really settle in and understand the teams for that year before it can make reasonably accurate predictions; and
• include a minimum of four wins.

In short, we want to give the computers a few weeks to really understand what's going on with a team for a given year before we can proclaim that a winning streak is "improbable" for that year instead of merely a change over the previous year.

With that, let the countdown begin after the jump.

#5: 2004 Iowa State Cyclones
Date	Prediction				Odds	Results
2004/10/23	Baylor	30	Iowa St.	32	54.5%	Baylor	25	Iowa St.	26
2004/10/30	Iowa St.	27	Kansas	31	33.3%	Iowa St.	13	Kansas	7
2004/11/06	Iowa St.	24	Nebraska	31	20.2%	Iowa St.	34	Nebraska	27
2004/11/20	Kansas St.	39	Iowa St.	27	14.5%	Kansas St.	23	Iowa St.	37

The first stop in our countdown are the 2004 Iowa State Cyclones, a squad in the news more recently for a stunning upset of top-tier Iowa in a triple-OT thriller. Seven years ago to the day, though, the Cyclones came up a TD short against Iowa. They came back with a 1-TD win against Northern Illinois, and then proceeded to drop three straight against Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, and Colorado. Even with a 2-4 record the Cyclones were slight favorites against Baylor, and eeked out a 1-point victory. The next three games, though, were against Kansas, Nebraska, and Kansas State, a stretch in which Iowa State would be fortunate to pick up a single win. The Cyclones clearly hadn't checked the stat sheets, though, and reeled off a stunning trio of upsets. Their winning streak was only interrupted by the interception of a game-winning TD pass in the endzone against Missouri. The Cyclones bounced back and defeated Miami-Ohio in the 2004 Independence Bowl. This 1-in-188 winning streak still stands as the fifth-best in recent history.

#4: 2010 Auburn Tigers
Date	Prediction				Odds	Results
2010/10/02	Auburn	41	LA-Monroe	24	94.1%	Auburn	52	LA-Monroe	3
2010/10/09	Kentucky	31	Auburn	35	64.6%	Kentucky	34	Auburn	37
2010/10/16	Auburn	35	Arkansas	31	61.6%	Auburn	65	Arkansas	43
2010/10/23	Auburn	32	LSU	33	47.6%	Auburn	24	LSU	17
2010/10/30	Mississippi	32	Auburn	36	61.8%	Mississippi	31	Auburn	51
2010/11/13	Auburn	37	Georgia	34	61.2%	Auburn	49	Georgia	31
2010/11/26	Alabama	35	Auburn	31	25.5%	Alabama	27	Auburn	28
2010/12/04	Auburn	35	South Carolina	34	50.7%	Auburn	56	South Carolina	17
2011/01/10	Auburn	36	Oregon	38	42.9%	Auburn	22	Oregon	19

I know we've been known to wonder aloud at what's up with Auburn, but you can't deny that they skated on the edge of ruin all season long. They needed a late field goal to beat Kentucky, managed to knock Arkansas' star QB out of the game and then proceeded to give up several touchdowns to his inexperienced backup, benefitted from 3 Alabama turnovers that prevented the halftime score from being 42-7 in Alabama's favor, and had a lot of luck in sneaking past Oregon in the title game. Last year when we examined the remaining undefeated teams in FBS, Auburn was the longest of the long shots in early October, and two weeks later had managed to position themselves somewhere between Utah and Michigan State in the pantheon of perfect teams. The Tigers had a 1-in-267 in navigating this schedule without a loss.  For the sake of comparison, pull out a coin and flip it 8 times; if it came up heads all 8 times, then you're almost as lucky as Auburn was last year. Almost.

#3: 2004 UTEP Miners
Date	Prediction				Odds	Results
2004/10/02	UTEP	36	New Mexico St.	35	53.3%	UTEP	45	New Mexico St.	0
2004/10/09	Fresno St.	38	UTEP	25	11.7%	Fresno St.	21	UTEP	24
2004/10/16	UTEP	33	Hawaii	37	33.9%	UTEP	51	Hawaii	20
2004/10/23	LA Tech	34	UTEP	31	38.0%	LA Tech	27	UTEP	44
2004/10/30	SJSU	33	UTEP	41	68.9%	SJSU	20	UTEP	38
2004/11/13	UTEP	37	Rice	32	65.8%	UTEP	35	Rice	28
2004/11/20	UTEP	35	SMU	26	83.8%	UTEP	57	SMU	27

UTEP had come off an abysmal 2003 season with a 2-11 record, and the first two games of 2004 hinted of more of the same. A 32-point loss to Arizona State followed by a 16 point loss to Boise sandwiched a win over D-IAA Weber State (something the computer doesn't know about). But new coach Mike Price had been brought in to turn things around, and turn them around he did. A 45-0 drubbing of New Mexico State started the turnaround in earnest, and a 24-21 win over a very good Fresno State team was the true start of pulling UTEP out of the nosedive. Drubbings of Hawaii and Louisiana Tech cemented UTEP as a favorite in its remaining games, and the Miners sealed their bowl eligibility with decisive wins over San Jose State, Rice, and SMU. The 57-27 win over the Mustangs capped an improbable 1-in-328 romp through the tail end of the 2004 season.

#2: 2010 Miami-Ohio Redhawks
Date	Prediction				Odds	Results
2010/10/30	Buffalo	31	Miami-OH	29	44.6%	Buffalo	9	Miami-OH	21
2010/11/10	Bowling Green	34	Miami-OH	31	36.4%	Bowling Green	21	Miami-OH	24
2010/11/17	Akron	27	Miami-OH	35	78.0%	Akron	14	Miami-OH	19
2010/11/23	Miami-OH	24	Temple	33	17.5%	Miami-OH	23	Temple	3
2010/12/03	Miami-OH	26	Northern Ill.	38	12.9%	Miami-OH	26	Northern Ill.	21
2011/01/06	Miami-OH	29	Middle Tenn.	30	47.0%	Miami-OH	35	Middle Tenn.	21

Last year's Miami-Ohio team was coming off an atrocious 1-11 2009-2010 season. The 2010 season started out slightly better, but the Redhawks dropped games against Florida, Missouri, and Cincinnati by a combined score of 130-28. Thank goodness for the MAC conference schedule and some lucky bounces. Playing only one of the six games as a favorite, the Redhawks went on a 4-0 tear through late October and November to make it to the MAC title game where they were heavy underdogs top Northern Illinois. With 33 seconds left Miami scored the go-ahead touchdown to go from cellar dwellers to conference champions over the course of a single year. One month later they put the finishing touches on a 6-game winning streak by defeating Middle Tennessee State in the GoDaddy.com bowl. When Miami took the field on October 30, 2010, they odds of them accomplishing this feat stood at a staggering 1-in-744.

#1: 2006 Rice Owls
Date	Prediction				Odds	Results
2006/10/14	Rice	29	UAB	32	41.3%	Rice	34	UAB	33
2006/10/21	UCF	35	Rice	31	40.9%	UCF	29	Rice	40
2006/11/04	UTEP	37	Rice	31	31.3%	UTEP	31	Rice	37
2006/11/11	Tulsa	38	Rice	27	15.6%	Tulsa	38	Rice	41
2006/11/18	Rice	29	East Carolina	35	33.9%	Rice	18	East Carolina	17
2006/11/25	Rice	31	SMU	34	43.0%	Rice	31	SMU	27

The most improbable win streak that fits the criteria comes from the 2006 Rice Owls, and is also unique in our countdown: all six times Rice was the underdog, and six times they won. Three of these games -- against UAB, UCF, and SMU -- were all expected to be close, but Rice won those three coin tosses. Add into the mix a pair of slight uphill battles -- UTEP and ECU -- and one downright Big Win(TM) against Tulsa, and you've got the makings of an improbable win streak. This was a winning streak by the narrowest of margins, though. The victories came by a total of 26 points, or 4.33 points per game. If you toss out the 11-point drubbing of UCF, this turns into 5 victories by an average of a field goal each.  The odds of Rice pulling off these six victories puts them squarely at the top of this list, at approximately 1-in-831.

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