Historical Portal: The game that changed everything

Upending college football history with West Virginia winning the 2007 Backyard Brawl

Feb 05, 2025

Note: This is the first installment of a new series - Historical Portal - an alternate history experiment with some of the biggest what if’s in recent history. You can find the page hub of all the Historical Portal series as well as the chance to select a topic here. Want to watch a video instead? This whole series is getting the video essay treatment on the SID Sports YouTube, with this video coming soon.

There are a few games that are known by their scores. But what if one was reversed? Let’s step into the alternate history portal and change the result of 13-9 in the 2007 Backyard Brawl and see how that affects the college football landscape.

It’s December 1, 2007 and we’re at Mountaineer Field at Milan Puskar Stadium for a Big East rivalry matchup. The home team, the West Virginia Mountaineers, are one of the nation’s best, clocking in at Number 2 overall in the then-definitive BCS Rankings. On the other sideline are the unranked and frankly bad Pittsburgh Panthers.

Only the Panthers weren’t that bad that fateful night in Morgantown. In fact, they were pretty good. In the Year of the Upset, Pitt pulled off one of the final major ones, downing the No. 2 Mountaineers 13-9. But what if it wasn’t so? Let’s step into the Historical Portal.

2007

Pat White wasn’t the biggest or most talented passer in the nation. But he had a specific role in the zone read system pioneered by West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez. He’s the general, the glue, the engine that makes one of the nation’s top offenses go. So what happens when you take away the engine? We find out in real life with 5:12 to go in the second quarter when White injures his hand on a no-gain rush on second and six from the Pitt 45 yard line. In steps Jarrett Brown and the rest, while in no way Brown’s fault, is history. But not today. Today, White just goes down and returns to the huddle for the next play.

White orchestrates the same touchdown drive that Brown did to bring the Mountaineers up 7-0. Pittsburgh ekes out a field goal before the half and then responds with a five-minute touchdown drive to open up the second half and claim a 10-7 lead.

But the offense doesn’t falter. No, they do West Virginia things. White, explosive tailback Steve Slaton, power running Noel Devine and fullback Owen Schmidt continue the roll they found and score another touchdown, taking a 14-10 lead. From there, West Virginia is able to sneak past with a narrow, yet ugly, 17-13 win.

The 11-1 Mountaineers hang on to win and claim the Number One spot after Missouri is defeated 38-17 by Number 9 Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship Game. Without a Big East title game - the Backyard Brawl was played during conference championship week - the Mountaineers claim the bulk of the first-place votes and take the top slot and a spot in the BCS National Title Game.

Rodriguez’s Mountaineers travel to New Orleans, Louisiana for the BCS National Championship - a showdown against Ohio State. The Buckeyes claimed the Number 2 slot after an ugly 14-3 win in The Game behind two touchdown rushes by Chris “Beanie” Wells.

In this BCS National Championship, the stages are all but set for a West Virginia coronation. The Mountaineers have the best rushing offense this side of the service academies - even better than Army’s - but Ohio State has the nation’s best scoring defense. It’s a classic battle of unstoppable force against immovable objects. But West Virginia also has a stout defense - one that ranks eighth in the nation in scoring defense. With Ohio State’s 41st ranked offense, the Beanie Wells-led Buckeyes suffer the same fate they did in real life against LSU and can’t hang with the Mountaineers. West Virginia has done it. The Crystal Ball is coming to Morgantown.

2007 Coaching Carousel

The 2007 Backyard Brawl was perhaps the most famous game of that season. Well, maybe not as famous as Appalachian State’s blocked field goal to win in the Big House to open the season. But that game was famous for sheer nonsense. It was a ridiculous outcome. One that only got more ridiculous as the Year of the Upset unfolded. The 2007 Backyard Brawl didn’t suffer that same fate. No. The Backyard Brawl changed football history.

Our story takes us back to Ann Arbor, where the Michigan Wolverines have had it up to here with their head coach Lloyd Carr, who can’t beat Ohio State and lost to FCS Appalachian State in Ann Arbor. Carr announces his retirement two days after the loss to Ohio State and Michigan is on the hunt for a coach.

The search that would follow is one of many twists and turns that causes Michigan fans’ blood pressures to rise. In real life, the messy search ends with West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez heading over to Ann Arbor. Not here. Because Rodriguez proved to everyone that his system works and he can win in Morgantown. So he stays. Michigan comes calling and Rodriguez says “thanks, but no thanks.”

So where does Michigan turn? Their coaching search landed a bunch of names that you probably know now. Kirk Ferentz was in consideration until he wasn’t. Les Miles flirted with and ended up declining the job with the Tigers fresh off a national championship win. The coach of upstart Cincinnati was given consideration. His name? Brian Kelly. Rutgers’ Greg Schiano turned it down.

In this scenario, Miles isn’t preparing for the national title game and has some time on his hands. I hear Ann Arbor is nice that time of year. Miles makes the trip and agrees, liking the fit of the Maize and Blue and the sound of Hail to the Victors. He’s announced as the next Michigan head coach. LSU turns to a familiar face a lot sooner than they do in this timeline and poach Brian Kelly from Cincinnati. Cincinnati could turn to someone like, oh, I don’t know, Kevin Sumlin? He was hired by CUSA Houston at the time, so he’d be in Cincinnati’s wheelhouse.

As for Rodriguez? How does a hefty pay raise after Michigan came calling sound? After all, he is an alum.

2008

Back in Morgantown, Rodriguez sits in his office and surveys the roster ahead of a matchup against FCS Villanova. He has his entire staff back because he didn’t poach them for Michigan. He also has his guys back. Pat White? Back. Noel Devine? Back. Steve Slaton is off to the NFL as a third round selection of the Houston Texas, but Devine is more than ready to take the mantle from Slaton.

The Mountaineers are the defending national champions and start the season ranked 5th in the AP Poll behind Georgia, Ohio State, USC, and Florida. Rodriguez and White have a light start to the slate with battles against Villanova and East Carolina. They run through Villanova without breaking a sweat, while a quality ECU team gives them fits, West Virginia survives. They travel to Boulder to take on an average Colorado team and run through them, too. Marshall provides little to no challenge for the White-led Mountaineers and West Virginia climbs the rankings to Number 2 behind USC led by Mark Sanchez.

Big East play commences with a battle against a solid Rutgers program led by Michigan-spurning Greg Schiano. Despite the best efforts of Schiano and the Scarlet Knights’ defense, White and Devine tear through the Rutgers defense.

In fact, that’s how most of the season goes. Even in real life, the Mountaineers didn’t slip up much in conference play, aside from losses to Cincinnati and Pittsburgh in the next Backyard Brawl. Let’s assume one of those is flipped - the overtime loss to Cincinnati. Because of how close that margin is, I feel like having Rodriguez on the sideline with a handle on how his team would play is enough to get the lead. Pair that with Kevin Sumlin leading the Bearcats instead of Brian Kelly and it's enough to sway the result.

But that leaves us in a heartbreaking loss in the Backyard Brawl to none other than Pitt. At the time, I think West Virginia would be a Top Five team. Not anymore, as an unranked - but receiving votes - Pittsburgh toppled the Mountaineers. With two losses, that puts West Virginia near the bottom of the Top 10. It does leave Rich Rod’s Mountaineers at the top of the conference polls, especially with their overtime win over Cincinnati. Despite not reaching the same highs as the national championship last season, the Mountaineers put together a solid 11-1 regular season with a Big East Championship. That would earn Rich Rod’s Mountaineers an Orange Bowl bid against No. 21 Virginia Tech which would be a close game. But, based on how Tyrod Taylor and the Hokies beat up on Cincinnati in real life, I think Virginia Tech comes out on top here.

So that leaves Rich Rod’s Mountaineers a 11-2 season and Big East title. Not too shabby, right? I mean, it’s not the ideal way to send off the seniors like Pat White, but still a lot for a Big East team like West Virginia. Except, could this new crop of talent keep the ball rolling?

2009

Once again, we survey the West Virginia roster. Much of the talent has moved on like Pat White, Pat McAfee, Steve Slaton, Owen Schmitt and others. But there are a few names on the roster you may recognize. Hey, Noel Devine’s back. A freshman Stedman Bailey is here. Jock Sanders is the top receiver. Jarrett Brown, White’s longtime backup, is the quarterback.

But the new guard is also here. For one, Bill Stewart was able to sign one of the most electric players in college football history. You know the one. That’s right. Tavon Austin has arrived and you bet Rich Rodriguez would’ve been all over the kid if he’s in Morgantown. So Tavon is now a vital cog in the Rodriguez zone read scheme.

This is an alternate history, after all. And it’s time to flex that timeline. Because Bill Stewart signed his guy in the 2008 class at quarterback in Geno Smith. You know, the guy that threw a bazillion yards to Tavon Austin. But Geno isn’t a Rich Rod guy. He had his eyes set on a much bigger prize.

You see, Rich Rodriguez was hot on the trail of a star prospect in Jeannette High School in the Pittsburgh suburbs. The kid was different. Transcendent. A star in the making. The five-star was a pro-ready 6’6” with a cannon arm and track player speed. He delayed his signing day until after he helped the Jayhawks win the state basketball championship. Of course, we’re talking about Terrelle Pryor.

This isn’t some pipe dream drawn up to forward this alternate history scenario. Rodriguez was heavily interested in Pryor. And Pryor in Rodriguez and his zone read system. In our timeline, Pryor kicked West Virginia to the curb in his finalists lists when Rodriguez bolted for Ann Arbor and the Maize and Blue, adding Michigan in their place.

In this new timeline, Pryor doesn’t have to play the cat and mouse game he did with Ryan Mallett - another highly touted quarterback who sat behind Chad Henne at Michigan and was rearing to take over the program when Coach Rod arrived - instead, Pryor is the guy. Oh, and did I mention he was in the 2007 recruiting class?

This is the biggest divergence from our timeline, so I’m going to take a little longer here. Why would Pryor choose West Virginia over Ohio State? After all, he didn’t pick RichRod and Michigan in real life? For one, there was Ryan Mallett at Michigan ready to go. West Virginia doesn’t have that path - just a season behind Pat White who plays a strikingly similar game to Pryor. Now, Rodriguez has the bona fides. A national championship from the Mountaineers in 2007 on the back of that Backyard Brawl win - over fellow finalist Ohio State at that - should be enough to sway Pryor to join the Mountaineers.

Pryor commits to Rich Rod and the Mountaineers, mostly sitting for the 2008 season behind senior Pat White, but he gets some action in specific packages and mop up time.

In 2009, it’s a different story. Pryor is a sophomore, ready to be unleashed on the world in Rodriguez’s zone read scheme. Remember all those players? Noel Devine, Jock Sanders, Stedman Bailey, and Tavon Austin? Imagine them in the Rodriguez scheme with Terrelle Pryor under center. Well, not directly under center. You know, because of the shotgun looks.

Either way, 2009 is a coming out party of sorts. Pryor, now a sophomore, was ready to take the reins over from White and take the Mountaineers to new heights. In our timeline, the 2009 Mountaineers finished the regular season at 9-3, a respectable mark in their first post-Pat White season.

How does that look with Terrelle Pryor at quarterback instead of Jarrett Brown, who would remain the backup for his senior season? We can’t really compare stats since the Tressell scheme Pryor ran at Ohio State was much more pro-style than West Virginia’s RichRod zone read, but even in that vacuum, Pryor outplayed Brown in 2009.

We can assume that the dynamic combination of Pryor and Devine would absolutely be the best offense Rodriguez marched into Milan-Puskar Stadium, and with the hype around that pairing and last season’s Big East Championship, you bet the Mountaineers would’ve started the season ranked, unlike in our timeline. I’d notch the Mountaineers as a team in the 20-25 range due to the uncertainty of the move from White to Pryor, but they’d quickly start climbing.

Just like in our timeline, West Virginia would rip off two wins, but fall on the road to Auburn. It would be a close game, but the raucous Auburn crowd would be too much for Pryor in his first big-time action. Then, four straight wins put the Mountaineers at No. 20 in the AP Poll at 6-1 with a battle against fellow 6-2 South Florida. Because the Bulls took the game so handedly, I think the result stands here and USF gets a Top 25 win. But I expect the game to be a lot closer than the real-life 30-19 result with a WVU running game invigorated by Pryor and Devine.

At 6-3, the Mountaineers fall out of the Top 25 polls, but a win against Louisville sets up a battle against Cincinnati. Except - these aren’t the No. 5 Bearcats you see in real life. Instead, it’s the Kevin Sumlin-coached Cincinnati that’s still very good, but ranked in the 17-20 range instead of Top Five. No matter, Pryor and Devine run over the Bearcats for a major win. WVU re-enters the rankings at 24 for a ranked Backyard Brawl against No. 8 Pittsburgh. And, just like in real-life, West Virginia claims revenge against Pitt with a 19-16 win.

2009 closes with West Virginia sitting at 10-2 in the regular season and 5-2 in Big East Conference play. Believe it or not, the win over Pitt earns the Mountaineers - who are climbing into the Top 15 after two straight ranked wins, including a top ten win over Pitt - yet another Big East Championship. I’d assume Cincinnati would lose another conference game and WVU would hold the tiebreaker over both them and Pitt.

That puts WVU in the Sugar Bowl against No. 5 Florida. Just like against Auburn, I think the Mountaineers are just overmatched here, but it’s a lot closer than the 51-24 drubbing Florida put on Cincinnati in the real timeline. Let’s say it’s more of a 34-42 barnburner, but Florida pulls away in the end.

For those counting, our alternate history has landed us with these results for West Virginia:

2007: 12-1, Big East Champions, National Champions
2008: 11-2, Big East Champions, Orange Bowl loss
2009: 10-3, Big East Champions, Sugar Bowl loss

2010

Somehow, 10-3 and a Big East Championship feels like a little bit of a letdown. You’d think you’d get more from Terrelle Pryor in this offense than just that? But 2010 is where it gets interesting. Especially so since Noel Devine is back for his senior season and freshman or sophomore phenoms like Pryor, Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey all have a full season under their belts and enter as a junior, sophomore and sophomore respectively.

The Mountaineers start this season ranked 19 after a narrow Sugar Bowl loss to a Top Five Florida program. They rattle off three easy non-conference wins over then-FCS Coastal Carolina, Marshall and Maryland. But then comes the coming out party.

Rich Rod, Pryor, Tavon and Devine head to Baton Rouge to Tiger Stadium to face LSU. It’s a Top-20 matchup with West Virginia up to No. 17 and the home Tigers holding the No. 15 slot. In our timeline, the Mountaineer offense was largely ineffective, only mustering two scores and 177 total yards. Not now, though. West Virginia comes out with their hair on fire and Terrelle Pryor torches the LSU defense. It’s a rout and everything’s coming up West Virginia.

That includes their ranking, which jumps to 11 - just outside the Top 10.

With a relatively light schedule - and overall year for the Big East - it’s hard to imagine this iteration of West Virginia slipping up. Especially with their real-life losses coming to LSU in Baton Rouge, and 8-5 Big East foes UConn and Syracuse. This team doesn’t suffer the same fate and dazzles on their way to a perfect 12-0 season and Big East Championship.

That sets up quite the conundrum atop the nation’s polls. There are now four 12-0 conference champions beckoning for a national title shot. West Virginia is one, as is the Andy Dalton-led TCU, Darron Thomas’s Oregon, and the Cam Newton Auburn Tigers. How would the BCS sort this out?

I’d imagine TCU, being a Mountain West school, would clearly be in the fourth spot. I’d also imagine Auburn would once again claim the top spot behind the electric season of Cam Newton.

That leaves us with Oregon or West Virginia. The Ducks held onto the top slot for five weeks before the SEC Champion Tigers bounced them to second for a national title matchup. There’s three Top 25 wins to Oregon’s resume. West Virginia, on the other hand, just has the one win in Death Valley. With both teams’ counting numbers incredibly impressive, I don’t see how West Virginia gets the nod here over Oregon.

In that case, the 2010 BCS Championship is unchanged - Cam Newton dominates Oregon and cements his place in the annals of college football. West Virginia would head out west to Pasadena, California in the Rose Bowl Game against No. 5 Wisconsin. The Mountaineers cruise, claiming a Rose Bowl win and perfect 13-0 record. Maybe they even hang a claimed National Championship banner.

With only Devine running out of eligibility, the future's looking bright in Morgantown. Well, bright if you decide to keep your eyes on the field instead of off of it.

Tattoogate

December 23, 2010. The NCAA Committee on Infractions holds a press conference to announce some damning transgressions. A plain visit to a tattoo parlor near campus has become a national storyline.

In our timeline, this happens at Ohio State. That’s not the case here, as the ringleader isn’t in Columbus. He’s in Morgantown. The NCAA catches a whiff of impropriety from Terrelle Pryor about selling his Big East championship rings and accepting inadmissible benefits from a Morgantown tattoo parlor.

I’d assume, like at Ohio State, a few other teammates are involved in this scheme. We won’t mention who because this is a hypothetical and there’s no way of knowing. But let’s go with the idea of four other starting Mountaineers being involved alongside Pryor just like at Ohio State.

Just like with Ohio State, the NCAA Committee on Infractions suspends the athletes for the first five games of 2011 and orders the players to pay back what they earned from selling their merchandise and the impermissible benefits. In this case, Pryor and the other offending players would be suspended for games against Marshall, FCS Norfolk State, at Maryland, LSU, and Bowling Green.

Looking back at this scandal in hindsight, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. So what if the players got cheaper tattoos? So what if they sold some rings or jerseys or autographs? They should be able to do that and profit off their names!

And, thankfully, they can now. But that wasn’t the case in 2010. The college athletics world was vastly different from the one you see today. Tattoogate was the biggest scandal in the 2000’s before the Jerry Sandusky news threw Penn State into turmoil. College football fans largely still believed and valued the amateurism aspect of college athletics and saw the players as student-athletes instead of just athletes.

That context is important, but things get worse. Pryor, with two seasons of starting experience, two Big East Championships and a Rose Bowl win, declares for the NFL Draft rather than deal with some silly sanctions. He’s a bonafide star in the college ranks - likely receiving Heisman attention in 2010.

But now, without Pryor, the West Virginia program is facing down the barrel of a gun. One that’s ready to go off at a moment’s notice.

When the scandal broke in Columbus, it actually got much, much worse than just the suspension. It turns out that Ohio State hero head coach Jim Tressel knew about the allegations and swept them under the rug. With the NCAA breathing down his neck, Tressel elected to resign from his post as Ohio State’s head coach. Then, the NCAA pulled the rug from Ohio State and forced them to vacate all of their 2010 wins.

What would Rodriguez do in that situation? I’d say Rich Rod had even more to lose than Tressel, which is a point in the cover-up bucket. Plus, Ohio State is one of the sports’ bluest of bloods. They can recover from something like this simply with time and being Ohio State. The same isn’t true in Morgantown, where an upstart program is trying to prove they belong.

As much as it sucks to say it, I think a similar thing would happen in West Virginia as at Ohio State. Rodriguez would be shown the door. The program would be thrust into disarray. With Pryor, the face of the program, off to the NFL and program architect Rodriguez gone, what would West Virginia have left to show?

The Aftermath

2011 has really lost its luster, hasn’t it? With Rodriguez leaving so late in the cycle in March, I’d assume we’d see a similar interim head coaching situation as at Ohio State. My guess, based on Rodriguez’s 2007 staff and our timeline, would be Bill Stewart taking over.

But Stewart doesn’t have the talent or the pull that Rodriguez had. With NCAA sanctions serving as a damper on any major momentum, the Mountaineer program would flounder. Even moreso when the net tightens and the Big East folds football in 2014.

Where does West Virginia end up? Pittsburgh and Syracuse defected to the ACC in September 2011, right after the sanctions were thrown on the Mountaineers. TCU pulled out of their impending membership shortly thereafter.

The writing was on the wall. Louisville, Cincinnati, UConn, South Florida and Rutgers were flirting with other conferences. Just like when the PAC-12 went up in flames a few years ago, the Big East football conference was now a fire sale.

West Virginia was also courting offers. In our timeline, the Mountaineers were famously spurned by the ACC and SEC, settling on the Big 12 with much chagrin from their donor and fan bases.

In this new timeline, the Mountaineers are a very interesting case study. For one, they’re more successful with five consecutive Big East Championships, the 2007 BCS National Championship and three more New Year's Six appearances, including a win in the most recent Rose Bowl. On the other hand, the Mountaineers were just gut punched by a massive NCAA scandal that sent their star player to the NFL and their head coach to the television set. With suspensions and a void 2010 season, who would take a chance on the Mountaineers?

I think it’s fair to say that West Virginia still gets denied by the largest powers that be - the ACC, Big Ten and SEC. That leaves Group of Five status or the Big 12.

At the time, the Big 12 wasn’t looking good by their own rights - with Texas A&M and Missouri off to the SEC, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State applying for PAC-12 membership and Texas desperately trying to find a conference home to accommodate their Longhorn Network. TCU, who was set to join the Big East, is an obvious grab and what happened in real life. But West Virginia?

By all reports, the Big 12 was only adding one school along with TCU. That was going to be either West Virginia or Louisville. Even in our timeline, the conference got cold feet about the Mountaineers and pivoted to Louisville last second. With all the NCAA sanctions, violations and the cloud around Morgantown, this new timeline sees the Cardinals plucked rather than the Mountaineers.

And that’s not so farfetched. It’s really a comparison between football and basketball. West Virginia was a growing power on the hardwood, but football was their draw and now their curse. Louisville, though, was enjoying five consecutive NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament appearances under Rick Pitino and continuously advancing multiple rounds, although they wouldn’t fully break through until their 2012-13 National Championship run. And, more importantly, there’s no hint at NCAA impropriety in the Louisville campus.

The Big 12 decides to go with Louisville, leaving West Virginia out to dry. At this point, we can basically swap the two schools in their realignment paths, with WVU landing as a founding member of the American Athletic Conference - the only member with a national championship since Y2K.

Past that, it’s hard to predict what happens. There’s so many variables that we won’t be able to sort though. So let’s just leave it there. A 2007 National Championship lands West Virginia in the American instead of at a Power Five level. It was a great run with some electric and exciting players.

But wait, what about the other butterfly effects? How do the other schools fare?

Cincinnati doesn’t see their Big East success with Brian Kelly continue, as Kevin Sumlin struggles for a bit. He’s fired in 2012 and Tommy Tuberville took over as the Bearcats joined the Mountaineers in the AAC.The Tuberville tenure leading into Luke Fickell largely remains the same.

Louisville gets more football momentum as they join the Big 12, but don’t claim any conference prizes. Still, the Lamar Jackson era is much more electric with the wild defenses down in the Big 12. The Cardinals become the next West Virginia of sorts - a must-watch offense headlined by an elite quarterback that just can’t get over the hump.

LSU struggled at the onset of the Brian Kelly hire and he’s eventually dumped after three seasons. With Kelly gone for the 2010-11 cycle, the Tigers try to do the best that they can with a rough hand, signing a pact with James Franklin, offensive coordinator of Kansas State. Franklin’s move to Baton Rouge would coincide with the start of his real-life Vanderbilt tenure. It takes some time, but Franklin builds LSU into a solid program. They routinely win 10 games and compete for a few SEC titles, but aren’t able to break through.

Ohio State is the real domino here. Without the signing of Terrelle Pryor, the Buckeyes continue on their path of Craig Krenzel and Todd Boekman with a Troy Smith tossed in every so often. Without Tattoogate, Jim Tressel is able to be a lifer at Ohio State, retiring ahead of the 2023 season. The Buckeyes, however, never went through the Urban Meyer revolution. The revitalization we saw from Meyer never happens and the Ohio State program never tries to keep up with the growing SEC powers. There is a great battle between Tressel and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh that encapsulates everything great about Big Ten football, though. The Buckeyes likely win another national championship at some point, but they’re not the power-hungry dynasty we’ve seen under Meyer and Ryan Day. I’d say they’re more akin to James Franklin’s Penn State.

If Urban Meyer doesn’t take the Ohio State job, where does he go, though? Let’s assume he wants to return to the sidelines in the 2011-12 offseason. The biggest jobs available would be post-scandal Penn State, Texas A&M, and North Carolina. Considering Meyer’s willingness to take over after Tattoogate and Penn State’s historical power given to head coach Joe Paterno, could the Nittany Lions lure Meyer out of retirement? It may not be a fit for the Ohio-born Meyer, but that didn’t stop him from stops in Utah and Florida.

For debate’s sake, let’s say Meyer waits another year and rejoins the fray in the 2012-13 offseason. SEC jobs like Tennessee or Auburn could be a better draw. Up north, Wisconsin is probably the best fit. Looking at those jobs in a vacuum, get ready Iron Bowl fans. Coach Meyer is coming to Auburn to go head-to-head with Nick Saban.

As for Rich Rod? He’d get another job, likely following his same path. FCS Jacksonville State would tab him as the transition head coach for their move to the FBS and he’d do great. But the reunion we just saw in Morgantown this offseason would never happen. Not after bringing the NCAA down on the Mountaineers and relegating them to has-beens that had one good run.

And from there, the butterfly stops. Its movements are beyond our view. That’s a lot of changes from one simple game though. We could go so far as to say that our timeline was decided during that fateful 13-9 game in chilly Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Because this new timeline certainly lends credence to complete SEC domination.