Historical Portal: The tides of change

The dominoes fall after just one recruiting decision changes

Jul 09, 2025

Note: This is the sixth and season finale installment of our Historical Portal series - an alternate history experiment with some of the biggest what if’s in recent history. This topic was suggested by friend of the newsletter

Tyler Schuster

in our season-ending topic poll. You can find the page hub of all the Historical Portal series stories here.

Throughout the late oughts and early 2010’s, there was one program, one name that was dominating everything. From television sets to video game covers to a country-wide phenomenon known as “Tebowing,” Florida quarterback Tim Tebow was college football.

And it’s not hard to see why. In four seasons - three of which Tebow started - his Florida Gators won two national championships. He finished in the top five of the Heisman voting each of the three seasons he started, winning the award once in 2007. He won two Maxwell Awards as the nation’s best quarterback. Tebow was the face of the sport.

Back in the late oughts, Florida was the program to beat, not Alabama. The Swamp was the place opponents feared. Urban Meyer was the hot coach atop the mountain and Tebow was his muse, his leader. But that almost never happened.

You see, Tebow’s decision wasn’t a slam dunk for the Gators. It was actually a tight recruiting battle. One between Florida and Alabama that came down to the wire.

We know how it ends up - we just ran through Tebow’s Florida accolades above. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if an icon of college football wasn’t in Gainesville, but in Tuscaloosa?

Let’s step into the Historical Portal.

Open the Lines

Signing Day before the NIL and transfer portal eras was different. It was the main way teams could inject talent into their rosters. In fact, it was the only way.

Signing Day conjures up images of joy. Images of players painstakingly selecting the right cap from an ensemble of schools they’re considering. Images of the player donning that cap and singing their National Letter of Intent, putting pen to paper that they’re officially coming to that school.

Now, Signing Day is still a strong part of the college football zeitgeist, but its immense place atop the calendar has waned in recent years, what with recruiting flips, de-commits, and the stark factor that they’re likely hitting the portal anyway.

It wasn’t like that in 2006. Signing Day was everything.

For young five-star Tebow, Signing Day wasn’t going to have a large ensemble of caps. Just two would be adorning the stage: Alabama and Florida.

Alabama, coached then by Mike Shula, pulled out all the stops trying to sign the generational talent of Tebow. Fans cheered his name when he came on an official visit to Bryant-Denny Stadium that October. Shula spent 12 hours on a visit with Tebow on his family farm. He put in the leg work and Tebow appreciated that.

Florida, by their own rights, were also pushing hard for the five-star. After all, he’s a native of the Sunshine State, playing his high school football in Jacksonville. Coach Urban Meyer was building a strong program capable of taking the step into BCS contenders. Alabama didn’t have that kind of upside.

Tebow had a decision to make. One that would ripple through all of college football.

Later in life, Tebow would go into detail on what happened that fateful Signing Day. As an uncommitted five-star, his decision was to be broadcast live on ESPN. And while most players would’ve come to a determination, Tebow hadn’t. He was still mulling it over.

4:30 p.m. Tebow was set to be live with ESPN in just 30 short minutes. He’s been going back and forth, stressing himself out of his mind to make this decision. Finally, mercifully, he looks to his father. He asks for help.

The two sit down and draw out lists. What’s important to Tebow? What’s not? And which school is better?

Ultimately, it comes down to people. Tebow said the people, the staff he would be working with, that was what was going to make this decision. His dad asks him to narrow it down: if you’re going to pick just one person, who would it be?

“And I was like, ‘I love Coach Shula at Alabama, but man, if it’s just one person I think I’ve got to go with Coach Meyer…because when he says something, I believe it.^’” Tebow had made his decision.

Still, with the clock ticking until showtime, Tebow wanted to inform the two teams on what he’d decided. He didn’t want them to learn on ESPN with the rest of the world.

So, Tebow called Shula first to break the news. He remembers crying during the call, hating breaking the news that he was going to Florida to Shula. Shula interrupted him, saying “I love you just as much now as if you came to Alabama. You’re gonna have a great career and hopefully I can coach you someday.”

The call ended. Now, it was time to call Meyer. With tears still in his eyes - “Alabama tears,” Tebow called them - he called the Florida coach. Meyer thinks the tears are because Tebow is calling him to say he’s going to Alabama. Then, the line goes dead. The call dropped.

Naturally, you’d think Tebow would just re-dial Meyer and tell him the truth: he was coming to Florida. That would, after all, be the simplest thing. But that doesn’t take into account the fact that Tebow was just minutes from announcing his decision on live television. As Tebow tries to get Meyer back on the line, he’s getting mic’ed up and rushed onto the stage. He can’t get a hold of Meyer. Tebow looks to his father and says “I didn’t actually tell Coach Meyer I’m going to Florida.”

You see, Tebow had a change of heart. When Shula interrupted him and professed his love for the young quarterback, that sealed it. Shula was meant to be Tebow’s coach, not Meyer.

By the time Tebow is live with ESPN in the auditorium of Nease High School, one side of the room in orange and blue, the other crimson and white, he’s still debating. Is Florida the right choice? Or is his gut saying Alabama is home correct?

Tebow leans into the microphone. “Next year, I’ll be playing football at the University of Alabama.”

Roll Tide

2005 was the best season of the Shula tenure, the culmination of two years of building, a 10-2 mark with a Cotton Bowl win. That’s even more impressive after some massive sanctions were lobbied on the program due to some recruiting violations and the messy departure of Dennis Franchione just two years earlier.

Still, Shula had his Tide pointing in the right direction for the first time since Bear Bryant’s fedora was patrolling the sidelines. The Tide had found an identity behind a strong defense headlined by DeMeco Ryans, Roman Harper and Freddie Roach.

Heading into 2006 - Tebow’s freshman season - there was no quarterback on the roster ready to play. Brodie Coyle played admirably in 2005, but he was out of eligibility. Backup John Parker Wilson was inexperienced, but looked good in limited action in 2005. Tebow likely wouldn’t have started over Wilson immediately.

2006 was a year that impacted not just Alabama football, but college football as a whole. It was the year that Shula’s tenure came crashing down to earth, causing the Tide to fire him ahead of the Iron Bowl. Notably, the coaching search that followed brought Nick Saban to Tuscaloosa. The rest, as they say, is history.

But, what if Tebow was there? Would things have been different?

Let’s assume that Tebow would’ve played a similar role as what he did in Florida - mostly as a punishing presence in short-yardage and red zone situations. In 2006, Alabama was particularly horrendous in the red zone, with red zone inefficiencies plaguing each of the Tide’s six losses that season.

Could the mere presence of one Timothy Tebow rectify that? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but I think it’s fair to say that Tebow could’ve changed three of those six losses into wins. For our purposes, let’s focus on the Arkansas, Tennessee, and Auburn games where one red zone conversion would’ve changed the result.

That puts Alabama at a very respectable 9-3, especially when the stalwarts of that strong 2005 defense were now showing their impacts on Sundays. It also gives the Tide two top-15 wins on the season. It’s not enough to move them up in a super competitive SEC West, but it’s enough to show the Tide are for real and not just a one-year flash in the pan.

It’s also enough to save Shula’s job, meaning that coaching domino doesn’t fall. Nick Saban isn’t coming to Tuscaloosa.

Let’s stick with that thread here. If Shula isn’t leaving, does anyone lure Saban from the NFL? It may seem unlikely, as Alabama was the only job the future GOAT was connected to at the time. And it’s not like there were a lot of high caliber openings that season - past Alabama the next best job was what, Michigan State? That wasn’t going to happen, not after he had spurned the program for LSU. In fact, he knew even entertaining the LSU job would’ve burned those bridges, so he hilariously sent his wife, Miss Terry, to scout Baton Rouge before taking the job sight unseen.

Realistically, Saban spends another season in Miami with the Dolphins, which also doesn’t go well. Then, the 2007 carousel strikes up a few more SEC jobs, but lower-tier ones like Arkansas and Ole Miss. There’s one job on that list that might be enough to call Saban away from the NFL. Could Michigan do it?

Think about it, it’s not that different from the profile of Alabama when Saban arrived: a blue blood that’s been down on its luck, a bitter rival, former national championship level play, and a donor base that would make him ludicrously paid. I’d say another year in the NFL with the paltry Dolphins is enough for Saban to want out bad enough to head up north and strike up his return with Michigan.

How’s that for a domino?

What if Saban stayed in the NFL and didn’t come back to dominate in college? We’ve already covered that what-if scenario:

Historical Portal: From failed physical to successful dynasty

Griffin Olah

May 15

Read full story

Tuscaloosa Tebow

It’s impossible to keep Tebow off the field in 2007. He’s clearly better than Wilson and takes the reins in full ahead of 2007. We know what he did that year, taking college football by storm with 3,286 passing yards, 32 passing touchdowns and an additional 895 yards and 23 scores on the ground. He won the Heisman that year.

It’s hard to judge what the Alabama teams would look like with Tebow under center because of the coaching change. Saban immediately injected life into the Crimson Tide on the trail, hauling in five-stars like Julio Jones and others that shifted the culture.

With Shula at the helm, we can’t assume that the same high-level recruiting continues. Still, 2007 Tebow was a beast of his own. Forget that there wasn’t much of anything past wideout D.J. Hall or tailback Terry Grant on the Alabama roster. This is a Cam Newton-type, carry the team on your back season. Tebow wills Alabama ahead. Close losses to Florida State, LSU, UL-Monroe and Auburn, where the offense sputtered, become wins. Tebow pulls the Crimson Tide’s lifeless corpse to a 10-2 regular season. One that lands the Tide in the SEC Championship against a Georgia team that just barely snuck past them. It’s hard enough to beat Tebow once, let alone twice. Shula and Tebow raise the SEC Championship trophy.

For his efforts, Tebow wins the Heisman trophy. Alabama heads to the Fiesta Bowl against West Virginia, where Tebow and Pat White put on a show for the ages. White and West Virginia prevail, though, as the Alabama defense can’t slow down the Mountaineers rushing attack.

As for the national championship, Oklahoma replaces an LSU team that got jumped by Alabama in the SEC to face Ohio State. The Sooners and Buckeyes are a close matchup, but Ohio State prevails.

2008 was supposed to be the coming out party for Nick Saban. Instead, it’s all Tebow Time. Glenn Coffee in the backfield next to Tebow is a dynamic duo. Even with Julio heading to Auburn, the Tide’s forward momentum behind their all-world, Heisman winning quarterback is enough to lure keystone players like Courtney Upshaw, Dont’a Hightower and Marcell Darius to Tuscaloosa.

Pairing a strong defense with a talent like Tebow is enough to push the Tide even further. Alabama rides an undefeated regular season behind their star quarterback to the SEC Championship against Georgia once again. And once again, the Tide roll past the Dawgs with Tebow claiming his second SEC Championship. This time, it puts Alabama squarely in the driver's seat for the BCS National Championship against Oklahoma. And just like Tebow did in real life, he dominates the Sooners. Alabama wins the 2008 National Championship. Tebow gets his ring.

The Cam-Back

2009 would be Tebow’s senior season. Before that started, though, headlines flew across the college football world.

You see, back in Gainesville, Urban Meyer was recruiting like a man with his hair on fire. Even without Tebow there to give his program a face, Florida would still pull plenty of stars in 2007 - names like Carlos Dunlap, Joe Haden, Aaron Hernandez, Ahmad Black, the Pouncey brothers and more. But one would become more impactful on the college world than the rest: Cam Newton.

Newton in 2009 was coming off a medical redshirt following an ankle injury that delayed his major debut. Then came the infamous laptop theft. This in and of itself could’ve been a Historical Portal topic, but instead, we’re lumping it into here. What most people don’t realize is that Meyer never actually kicked Newton off the team. Cam left on his own volition when Tebow announced he would be returning for his senior season.

In our timeline, I think Tebow does the same thing, coming back to chase another ring. Except he’s returning to Tuscaloosa, not Gainesville. That’s right, folks. Cam Newton stays at Florida. Meyer has always shown a propensity for, let’s say overlooking character concerns for on-field results. During Meyer’s five years at Florida, 31 of his players were arrested, including Newton. And that’s not even counting what most people think of when Aaron Hernandez is brought up. So, no, Meyer is not kicking Cam to the curb. Cam’s starting with a host of talent around him. And he’s just getting started.

The SEC in 2009 is really a two-team race between Tebow’s Alabama and Meyer’s Florida. I’ll assume the two talented teams finish the regular season as they did in the real timeline with a sole loss between them. After all, they didn’t see each other in the regular season.

December 5, 2009 would have the billing of a game of the ages. Tim Tebow against Cam Newton. Reigning National Champion against rising power. Florida against Alabama.

Who would’ve come out on top? In the real timeline, Alabama trounced Tebow and Meyer. But that was with all of Saban’s boys. With Tebow on the other sideline and Cam Newton leading the Gators out with Urban Meyer, who knows?

Ultimately, I don’t think Florida had the defense to hang around. But Cam Newton has shown that he can drag a team as far as possible. That 2009 season at Blinn College - an NJCAA school - Newton dominated as you’d expect. With the offense around him, I’ve deferring to the better coach (Meyer) and the absolutely transcendent talent that was Cam Newton. Florida edges past Tebow and Alabama to claim the 2009 SEC Championship.

That sets them up with an inferior Texas team that was debatably not back. Florida cruises and claims the 2009-10 BCS National Championship.

And that, my friends, runs out Tebow’s eligibility. He’s still heralded as one of the best college quarterbacks we’ve seen in the modern era. His offense under Mike Shula would probably be more pro-style than Meyer’s, but it doesn’t change much of anything in his professional career. Tebowmania sweeps the nation in 2011, but Tebow can’t put it together at the pro level.

But that’s not where our story ends. Sure, it’s the end of Tebow’s part, but we’ve got some dominoes to track.

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Tracking the Butterfly

The butterfly effect is a fun one and boy do we have some far-reaching effects in this. We’ve already seen two national championships - 2008 and 2009 - flip hands. What else happens?

Let’s stay in Tuscaloosa for now as Mike Shula’s program gets into some hot water. 16 of Alabama’s programs were slammed with impermissible benefit changes in the summer of 2009 ahead of Tebow’s final season. The Tide are forced to vacate wins early in Tebow’s tenure from 2005-07, but the 2008 National Championship is safe in the trophy room.

The biggest question to me is does Shula survive this? We can’t really use the real-life timeline as a model because the allegations came up after Shula was fired. It was a whole new staff led by Saban in the building when the NCAA came knocking. That’s not the case here.

Using some real-life parallels (remember Tattoogate?), I think Shula’s on his way out. That means that Alabama’s 2009 coach isn’t Mike Shula - instead it’s an interim coach like David Rader, then the offensive coordinator. And can you blame Alabama for keeping Rader around after the season they pulled off following a mid-summer firing?

So Alabama enters the post-Tebow era with David Rader as their head coach. And forgive me if you didn’t remember that Rader was a coach at all, seeing as he’s carved out a sizable political career in the Oklahoma state legislature. Needless to say, Rader’s tenure doesn’t go well. Alabama slips back to early-Shula era mediocrity. He’s fired after just four full seasons. Alabama joins four other SEC brethren in searching for a coach during the 2012 cycle.

Despite their lack of on-field success post-Tebow, I think Alabama stacks up well with the likes of Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky and Tennessee. Who knows, maybe Mark Stoops is heading to Tuscaloosa while someone like Tommy Tuberville goes to Kentucky?

Heading over to Florida, the Gators repeat in 2010 behind the unstoppable force that is Cam Newton. But then all those arrests and scandals manifest some health issues, forcing Urban Meyer to step away from the program. Unfortunately for Gators fans, what comes next can’t be changed. They follow the same trajectory as we saw in our timeline.

What about some fringe butterfly effects? There’s one that I want to really look at - Texas Tech. Way back in 2006 when Shula was pursuing Tebow, he also had another quarterback he wanted in future SEC commentator Greg McElroy. The race, like with Tebow, was between two teams: Alabama and Texas Tech.

With Tebow landing in Tuscaloosa, that would clearly keep McElroy in Texas with the Red Raiders and coach Mike Leach. Does that move the needle on the post-Graham Harrell era in Lubbock? Probably not, but there is one interesting thorough line.

You see, in the real timeline, Leach has to pivot after McElroy heads to Alabama. Two weeks after McElroy announces he’s Tuscaloosa-bound, the Red Raiders sign Adam James, the son of ESPN broadcaster Craig James who has his own whole thing to answer for, but that’s neither here nor there (CJK5H). Sure, James didn’t play quarterback, but the Red Raiders didn’t sign a quarterback during that cycle. That means someone is losing out on a scholarship.

James seems like both a convenient and interesting thread to follow. After all, Leach has said that most of the Texas Tech staff was against recruiting him. Which means James is the likely odd-man out.

But how would this random recruit mean anything to college football? Well, James and his father (still searching for those hookers) didn’t like how Leach was running the program. And the program and position coaches didn’t like James’s attitude. There’s a lot of he-said, she-said about what happened, but the Jameses complained of unsafe and abusive behavior from Leach and got the Pirate run out of Lubbock. It’s also important to note that nothing improper ever came out about Leach after.

Now, with that tangent out of the way, if McElroy is heading to Texas Tech, do the Red Raiders still use a scholarship on Adam James? It may be a stretch, but with one scholarship less to go around and the staff’s already split opinions on James, let’s go with it. James has to play his football elsewhere because Mike Leach isn’t offering him a scholarship.

That means that Leach isn’t run out of Texas Tech. Is it possible the wheels would fall off at some point? Sure, but based on Leach’s track record post-Tech, I don’t think that happens. And that means we get to see an absolutely dynamic duo of Mike Leach and Patrick Mahomes II at Texas Tech. That, my friends is must-watch football.

Speaking of must-watch football, there’s one main thing we haven’t revisited: the career of one Nicholas Saban. Remember, he’s up in Ann Arbor now with major booster support. In our timeline, Urban Meyer is the one to bring the SEC mindset to the Big Ten. Not so here, as Saban heads up north much quicker. And you bet he builds a massive contender.

Not to get too into the nitty-gritty, but the 10-Year’s War between Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler gets a challenge when, in 2011, Ohio State hires Urban Meyer to compete with the growing juggernaut in Ann Arbor. That’s right, the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry is a head-to-head bout from the jump between Urban Meyer and Nick Saban.

I can only imagine the hatred, vitriol, and madness that would accompany their yearly games. And I would assume that plenty of national championships after Newton and Meyer’s departure from Florida would run through the Big Ten.

All because Tim Tebow went to Alabama instead of Florida.