Bad News for Oklahoma Fans

This weekend saw a very important moment in the college football offseason: the crowning of Miss America. This year, the award went to Jennifer Berry, an affable brunette who hails from Oklahoma. Standardly, a home state should feel a great sense of pride when one of their finest takes home the hardware, but a close observation of statistics and trends show that a Miss America victory is a harbinger of underachieving college football in the upcoming season.

A look at the last fifteen Miss America winners shows that their home state's football team went a dismal .534 in the fall following a victory. And the curse seems to extend beyond the home state -- the last three Miss Americas' alma maters went 6-28 in their victory year (five of those wins coming from I-AA Samford in 2005). This is particularly bad for Oklahoma fans, as Berry is also a student at the University of Oklahoma. The last double-whammy curse came in 2003, when Miss Illinois and U of I student Erika Harold saw her beloved Illini stumble to a 1-11 season.

While this year's Alabama team was fortunate enough to avoid the bugaboo by pulling off, against all odds, an impressive 10-2 season, you can see the historical futility in this table. Other than 2005, only '93 Florida and '92 Hawaii managed very successful seasons in the wake of a Miss America victory, both claiming a share of their conference's title.

Year	Miss America's Home State	Team's Record That Year
2005	Alabama	10-2
2004	Florida	7-5
2003	Illinois	1-11
2002	Oregon	7-6
2001	Hawaii	9-3
2000	Kentucky	2-9
1999	Virginia	7-5
1998	Illinois	3-8
1997	Kansas	5-6
1996	Oklahoma	3-8
1995	Alabama	8-3
1994	South Carolina	7-5
1993	Florida	11-2
1992	Hawaii	11-2
1991	Illinois	6-6
1990	Missouri	4-7
Totals:		(101-88) .534