Texas A&M, Florida, and the Cumulative Win/Loss

Here is more evidence that myopia is a serious problem in college football (as is major sports news networks buying massive interest stakes in particular conferences).

The cumulative win/loss has become one of my favorite toys. Basically, a team gets a point for each win and loses a point for each loss, and then I add those up over time. I've noticed that Texas A&M and Florida share a strikingly similar pattern in their cumulative win/loss histories. The correlation for the three decades of football between 1970 and 2000 is .9795 - for those unfamiliar with correlations, this essentially means the two track each other perfectly. And remember, Florida won a national championship during that period.

In other words, if we discount the Aggies' lost decade, the unfortunate product of a coach A&M stole from Alabama, Florida and Texas A&M have been more or less identical in the modern era of college football.