[NU Sports] Curse Meanderings

[cherron604 at aol.com]

Since the Trib picked up on the 'Curse' topic yesterday, I figured that I had better look into it a little more. 
 
Of the 39 Super Bowl Champions before this year, 8 were repeats, i.e. back-to back titles.  This means it is actually closer to 31 different 'teams' that have won the Super Bowl.  You could also argue that the 4 Steeler wins, the two 49er wins in '81 and '84, the 3 Cowboy wins in 4 years ('92, '93 and '95) and the 3 Patriot wins in 4 years ('01, '03 and '04) makes for 27 'virtual champions'.  At 40 players per winner, thats about 1100 players on winning Super Bowl teams (all vague, back of the envelope calculations).
 
So what is the likelihood that at least one other 'major' University had none of those 1100 players ?
 
(There might be a way to calculate that probabilistically, but I have totally forgotten how...)
 
So I looked at some of our more forlorn peers.
 
Duke and Vanderbilt didn't really have good listings of their NFL Alumni (that I could find).
 
Only eight times has an Indiana Hoosier participated in the Super Bowl
 
VII  Doug Crusan        72 Miami   WIN
VIII Doug Crusan        73 Miami   WIN
XXX Hurvin McCormack  95 Dallas   WIN
 
VI  Terry Cole            71 Miami   Lose
VI  Doug Crusan         71 Miami   Lose
XVIII Babe Laufenberg   83 Washington (Lose - did not play)
XXXIII Don Stryzinski    98 Atlanta  Lose 
XXXVIII Kemp Rasmussen  03 Carolina Lose
 
So having a few Dolphins in the 70's helped the Hossiers.
 
Rice's recent history is pretty bleak, but a Rice alum has played in a surprising 12 Super Bowls
 
And even more surprising, the Rice grad has been on the winning side 9 of those 12 times
 
These both seem pretty high, based on what Rice has done in the last few decades.
 
XI  Rodrigo Barnes     76 Oakland    WIN
XVI Earl Cooper         81 San Francisco   WIN
XVII Darryl Grant       82 Washington   WIN
XIX  Earl Cooper        84 San Francisco   WIN
XXII  Darryl Grant      87 Washington      WIN
XXXV OJ Brigance      00 Baltimore         WIN
XXXVI Larry Izzo        01 New England    WIN
XXXVIII Larry Izzo      03 New England    WIN
XXXIX  Larry Izzo       04 New England    WIN
 
XVIII  Darryl Grant      83 Washington     Lose
XXXIV Spencer George  99 Tennessee    (inactive - Lose)
XXXVI  OJ Brigance      01 St Louis        Lose
 
A big part of this seems to be that the bulk of Super Bowl rosters are linemen (18-20 out of 40).  And for a large portion of the 40 years in question, we were not putting nearly as many legitimate NFL lineman candidates on the field as other programs were (thanks, Bob Strotz).
 
Hoping to rescue our reputation, and find at least one other program without a winner...
 
Chuck Herron   Tech '85