By Cody Goggin | Missouri State University
Looking back at past seasons, we often remember championship match-ups, but we don’t always remember how teams got there. Sometimes you can look back and just imagine how different things would have been if the ball would’ve bounced a different way.
Back on December 1, 2007, the last weekend of the college football season, the Missouri Tigers and West Virginia Mountaineers occupied the top two spots in the BCS rankings and, with wins, would move on to play in the BCS National Championship (seems crazy right?). It was almost a surefire thing that West Virginia would beat their rival Pittsburgh in the Backyard Brawl. Coming into the game, West Virginia was 11-1 with the help of their Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback Pat White while Pitt came into the game just 4-7.
After getting off to a rough start, the Mountaineers were able to get their first score of the game in the second quarter to finally take a seven point lead. However, later in the second quarter, disaster would strike and White would dislocate his thumb, forcing him out of the game. Without him, West Virginia’s most used player would become their punter. Safe to say, West Virginia lost this game and tanked in the rankings.
As a result of this weekend, Missouri fell out of the top spot with their loss to Oklahoma. That made room for Ohio State in the BCS National Championship game. The Pat White injury allowed for LSU to come from fifth in the rankings to barely squeak in at the end, ranking second. LSU would go on to win the BCS championship that they shouldn’t have even been in. Fast forward nine years, Les Miles is still the head coach at LSU and on the hot seat once again.
If not for that Pat white injury, LSU would’ve had just an average season in their eyes, followed by two seasons of 4 and 5 losses, including a 2009 loss in the Capital One Bowl. loss, there were already rumors brewing that Les Miles could be fired after not living up to potential. Without a national championship on his resume two years earlier, he probably would’ve been fired at the end of 2009. This would have paid the way for a new head coach at LSU, such as former defensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, current defensive coordinator Bo Pellini, or TCU head coach Gary Patterson.
This could’ve changed history in a few different ways. If Jimbo would have left FSU and never become the head coach there, Florida State may not be a national powerhouse now. On the flipside, if Patterson became the head coach, LSU would be slinging the ball around the yard and TCU would likely not be in the Big 12, paving the way for another team, like Louisville or BYU (the most mentioned prospects in 2012) to join the conference.
So think about this. There could be Les Miles at Michigan, Jim Harbaugh still in the NFL, Gary Patterson at LSU, LSU possibly not playing for the 2011 championship, Louisville and Lamar Jackson running through the Big 12 right now, and TCU as a member of the now-defunct Big East. All because of Pat White’s thumb.