Florida Atlantic Owls 55, OSM{Florida International} 23

November, 24--Rather than dwell on the details of Florida International's 23 consecutive loss--okay, I do want to point out a couple things about the streak. Coming into the game, FIU's 22-game streak was tied with Duke's streak that ended earlier this year for the 9th longest ever. Now they are tied for 7th with Duke (1999-02) and Nothern Illinois (1996-98).

Now back to this season, and specifically, what must Florida International do next week against 2-9 North Texas in order not to finish last in the nation in various categories:

Wins: Currently last with 0. Duke, Minnesota, SMU, and Idaho all have only one victory this season. SMU's only win was over North Texas. Idaho's only win was over a I-AA team.

Points Scored per game: Currently last at 13.0. Notre Dame, Syracuse, and Temple are all tied for next-to-last at 16.4. To tie them, FIU needs 54 points, or 26 more than they have scored in any single game this season. However, working in their favor is the fact that North Texas is last in scoring defense and they allow 45.7 points per game and have allowed 66 or more points three times.

Points Allowed per game: Currently next-to-next-to-last with 39.8. As long as North Texas does not beat FIU by more than 53 points, FIU will not be last in points allowed.

Rushing Yards per game: Currently 20th from last with 119. It would have to be a truly historic loss with FIU rushing for -576 yards to finish worse than Texas Tech's 61.42 yards per game.

Passing Yards per game: Currently next-to-next-to-last with They must pass for -135 to let Air Force pass them, and also have Navy out pass them by approximately 325 yards.

Total Offense per game: Currently next-to-last with 262.91 yards per game. They need 228 yards to guarantee that Notre Dame will have fewer yards per game.

They also need to not lose 4 or more fumbles to not lead the nation in most fumbles lost.