boola boola

Anyone watching last night’s Rose Bowl probably saw the listing of the greatest winning streaks in college football history. (USC’s had been the sixth longest of all time until Texas ended it last night.) The third- and fourth-longest streaks of all time belong to my alma mater, Yale.
Which may seem strange today, when the Ivy League plays football like a moderately strong high-school conference. But as color man Dan Fouts said last night: “No one wanted to play Yale back then.”
By back then, I mean in the 1880s.
Yale had two streaks of 37 straight wins from 1887 to 1889 and 1890 to 1893. They were dominant: In the 1888 season, they outscored opponents 694-zip.
That was back in the day of Amos Alonzo Stagg, the Yalie who basically invented modern sports. He’s a hall of famer in both football (he invented the reverse, the fake punt, the huddle, the lateral, numbers on jerseys, and the freakin’ Statue of Liberty play!) and basketball (played in the first public basketball game ever, invented the five-man team, cofounded the Big 10). And he invented the batting cage.
And the football coach back in those days was Walter Camp, who did a few little things like invent the line of scrimmage, the 11-man team, and the forward pass.
I’d also like to point out that that list of the longest streaks proves a point. Note that the fifth-longest streak of all time belongs to the University of Toledo, a school I used to write about professionally. And that the fifth-longest active streak belongs to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, my local university growing up. In other words, I’m very good luck for football teams.