You could've made easy money using Ted Cruz and college football

• With Ted Cruz in attendance, Texas lost to Washington in the Sugar Bowl.
• It raises the possibility of "Ted Cruz curse" — when Ted Cruz attends a game, his team loses.
• Past performance is not an indicator of future results, but you've got to like these odds.
  

After the Texas Longhorns lost 31-37 to the Washington Huskies in the Sugar Bowl on Monday night, brought low by key fumbles in the second half and an inability to convert in the red zone in the final seconds, all eyes turned to one important factor: Ted Cruz was in attendance.

The Texas senator is known for the "Ted Cruz curse," the idea that when Ted Cruz is in attendance at a Texas sporting event, the team he is there to root for loses.The Ted Cruz curse had gathered steam since he attended the Houston Rockets' humiliating Game 7 loss in 2019, but became cemented after the Houston Astros, the favorite to win the American League, were knocked out 4-3 by the Texas Rangers. Ted Cruz, an Astros supporter, was in attendance for every game the Astros lost. (In the divisional playoffs, the Astros beat the Minnesota in three games, dropping only one game to the Twins. That was also the only game Cruz was in attendance for.)

Ryan Nanni at The Messenger has been doing the Lord's work and kept an impressively well-researched and up-to-date tracker of every sporting event Ted Cruz has attended since 2014.

Overall, Nanni finds little evidence of the Ted Cruz curse — with one important caveat that we'll get to. Of the 34 games Nanni confirmed Cruz attended, the teams Cruz supported won 18 times and lost 16 times.

For some sports, his record is remarkably uncursed. Of the six Houston Rockets games Cruz has attended in the NBA, they won five.

And despite the Astros flaming out against the Rangers, of the 17 MLB games Cruz has attended, the Astros have won 10. (Before the 2023 post-season debacle, Cruz's MLB record was an impressive 10-2).

Nanni cleverly uses the Vegas point spread, which finds the team favored to win, and calculates that Cruz attending a game leads to slightly more expected wins than you'd expect in the NBA and MLB.

In other words, in baseball and basketball games where Cruz's team is the underdog, they tend to win more than you would expect when Cruz attends.

But there's one black mark on Cruz's record: college football. There, Cruz truly does seem to bring some gnarly bad luck to bear.

Of the eight games Cruz has attended in person, the team he is supporting, be it the Texas Longhorns, the Baylor Bears, or the Texas A&M Aggies, loses 85% of the time for a 1-7 record.

Even accounting for the fact that in many of the games Cruz attended, the opposing team was favored, a 1-7 record is shockingly bad. (And it's worth noting Texas was a 3.5 point favorite heading into the Sugar Bowl against Washington.)

So, if you want to make easy money next college football season (and, of course, live in a state where gambling is legal), keep a close eye on Ted Cruz's travel plans. If he confirms his attendance to any Texas college football game, it wouldn't be the worst idea to quickly wager on the other team to win.

Past performance is not an indicator of future results, but when you're looking at a 1-7 record, you've got to like those odds.