VFL-82-JP
Bleedin' Orange...
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I've seen a few folks on these forums pooh-pooh our 6-game winning streak. "Not great teams," they'd say, "not big challenges," or, "we barely won some of the games," things like that.
Well, let's just think about what goes into a winning streak, purely from a probability perspective.
What if every team we played was a near-peer, a rough equal? Well, that would mean a roughly 50/50 chance of winning each game. So we can calculate the odds we'd win 6 in a row. It is simply:
50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% == .5 * .5 * .5 * .5 * .5 * .5 == .015625 == about 1.5%.
That's it, a less than 2% chance we get to where we are today.
But wait, the naysayers say, some of those weren't peer competition! Vandy wasn't peer competition! UAB wasn't either!
Okay, fair enough. Let's divide those six games into three groups: hugely favored (90% chance we win), slightly favored (60% chance), and slightly underdog (40% chance). We'll say that UAB and Vandy were 90% games ... that USCe (though we didn't know it then) and Kentucky were slightly favored for us (60%) ... and that we were slight underdogs for Mizzou and Indiana (40%).
GIven all that, our chance of running the back half of the schedule as we did was:
.60 * .90 * .60 * .40 * .90 * .40 == .046656 == a less than 5% chance we'd win out.
We can fiddle with the numbers some more, but it's always gonna come out in this general range: 2% to 5% chance of doing what our lads did. Accomplishing what they accomplished.
That's huge.
Lot to be proud of. Don't let the naysayers tell us any different.
Go Vols!
Well, let's just think about what goes into a winning streak, purely from a probability perspective.
What if every team we played was a near-peer, a rough equal? Well, that would mean a roughly 50/50 chance of winning each game. So we can calculate the odds we'd win 6 in a row. It is simply:
50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% * 50% == .5 * .5 * .5 * .5 * .5 * .5 == .015625 == about 1.5%.
That's it, a less than 2% chance we get to where we are today.
But wait, the naysayers say, some of those weren't peer competition! Vandy wasn't peer competition! UAB wasn't either!
Okay, fair enough. Let's divide those six games into three groups: hugely favored (90% chance we win), slightly favored (60% chance), and slightly underdog (40% chance). We'll say that UAB and Vandy were 90% games ... that USCe (though we didn't know it then) and Kentucky were slightly favored for us (60%) ... and that we were slight underdogs for Mizzou and Indiana (40%).
GIven all that, our chance of running the back half of the schedule as we did was:
.60 * .90 * .60 * .40 * .90 * .40 == .046656 == a less than 5% chance we'd win out.
We can fiddle with the numbers some more, but it's always gonna come out in this general range: 2% to 5% chance of doing what our lads did. Accomplishing what they accomplished.
That's huge.
Lot to be proud of. Don't let the naysayers tell us any different.
Go Vols!
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