Historical Portal: To yeet or not to yeet

Can un-yeeting a cleat change modern college football history?

Jun 25, 2025

Note: This is the fifth installment of our Historical Portal series - 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 stories here.

The world is, seemingly, in disarray. In fact, this game was even up in the air. With a world-wide pandemic shuttering doors all across the nation, The Swamp and other college football stadiums kept theirs open. At least, kept them open to the players and maybe a few fans, if you’re lucky.

Even with that backdrop, here we are in perhaps the strangest college football season ever in Gainesville, Florida on a cold, foggy night. The LSU Tigers are on the road one year after an improbable run to take home the College Football National Championship crown behind the golden arm of Joe Burreaux and one of the best modern teams ever assembled. At home are the Florida Gators, who are looking to get back to winning ways and desperately waiting for proof of concept from head coach Dan Mullen.

There’s just under two minutes left in a tied ballgame - 34 all. LSU’s Max Johnson just completed a pass to Kole Taylor for four yards to get the Tigers to their own 29 yardline, but it’s not enough for a first down. Florida is going to get the ball back, probably in great field position with nearly two minutes to play.

But wait. What’s that?

From within the fog, a single item lofts through the air, coming to a rest further down the field. What was it? Before anything is clear, yellow rains down as officials throw their flags. In one of the most questionable things ever done on a field, Florida is about to be penalized. Cornerback Marco Wilson threw a cleat. Taylor’s cleat. 15 yards. First down LSU.

From there, LSU would take the rivalry juice and go, marching down the field to set up a 57-yard Cade York field goal and take the lead, the win, and shatter Florida’s hearts.

But what if they didn’t? What if Marco Wilson simply handed the cleat back to Taylor? What if, more believably, he just didn’t notice it or didn’t care?

Let’s step into the Historical Portal.

2020

Before we look at the after effects of Wilson’s cleat yeet, we need some context. To go into the future, we first have to go back.

LSU, like we talked about, is fresh off a national championship led by the star-studded cast of Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Justin Jefferson, Patrick Queen, Grant Delpit, Derek Stingley Jr., and K’Lavon Chaisson. The only problem for the Bayou Bengals was that all of those players, save Stingley, are off to the NFL. In 2020, LSU is heading into The Swamp at a disappointing 4-5. Ed Orgeron’s Tigers have gone through three quarterbacks this season, none of which have been incredibly effective so far.

For Florida, though, Gator fans are waiting for a 2019 LSU-like breakthrough. Not that they haven’t been solid - the Gators under Dan Mullen have finished the first two seasons under his purview ranked seventh and sixth, respectively. But that’s not been good enough. Gator fans are hoping and praying for a playoff berth - something the school has never seen. Mullen has the Gators in position to seize just that with some help, as Florida enters the game at sixth in the College Football Playoff polls.

Now, with the stage set, let’s head back to The Swamp. In this timeline - our timeline - Marco Wilson makes a horrible mistake. He throws the cleat, earning a 15-yard penalty to extend the game-winning LSU drive. Not anymore. Wilson ignores the cleat and goes about his day, celebrating with his teammates on the sideline. Florida gets the stop.

The Gators get great field position, set up by the LSU punt deep in their territory. Behind a run game that gashed LSU for a sack-adjusted 8.6 yards per carry, the Gators get kicker Evan McPherson into chip shot territory. He cans a sub-40 yard attempt through the fog to get another win. Florida is victorious to close the regular season.

Instead of the disheartening, disappointing 8-2 close, Florida is sitting at 9-1 with a spot in the SEC Championship game waiting against Nick Saban’s Number One ranked Alabama.

In real life, the two-loss Gators fresh off a yeeted cleat, narrowly fell to Alabama 52-46. In our new timeline, does a 9-1 Florida fresh off an emotional rivalry win over LSU suffer the same fate? Honestly, who knows? The actual game was a toss-up, but Florida’s defense was struggling mightily the past two weeks against LSU and then in the SEC Championship. For our sake here, let’s assume the results stand. Alabama keeps the top spot and Florida is on the outside looking in.

The Final Four that year stays the same. Alabama at 1. Clemson at 2. Ohio State at 3. Notre Dame at 4. Florida gets a Cotton Bowl bid against No. 7 Oklahoma, just as it happened in our timeline. And since Oklahoma took Florida behind the woodshed in a 55-20 walloping, that result stays the same. Except, with some players electing to play in the game like Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney make it a lot closer. Let’s say something to the tune of 55-46? Yeah, that sounds right.

Instead of a real-life 8-4 finish, Dan Mullen’s Florida finishes 9-3 but showing proof of concept with three consecutive top-10 finishes and two close losses against really good teams. The Gators probably don’t drop far past their No. 6 rank, maybe to No. 8 at the lowest.

So, what’s the difference, you may ask? Especially since all the following on-field results are the same aside from Florida winning against LSU to close out the 2020 regular season? My friends, it’s time to turn the page

2021

Well, maybe not yet. We’ll take a stop in Reality Town to mark Mullen’s extension he signed following the 2020 season that made him the fifth-highest paid coach in the NCAA.

With a better finish to the 2020 season, you better believe the Florida brass would reward Mullen with the same extension. In fact, it might have a decent pay bump, but not enough to move him higher on that compensation list.

Still, the issues that plagued Mullen’s real life tenure in Gainesville are still brewing under the surface even after a win over LSU that foggy night. For one, Mullen was infallibly loyal to his coordinators, particularly Todd Grantham. And that’s a good thing, but not when you’re being loyal to someone that’s seemingly torpedoing your program. (See: Brian Ferentz at Iowa and Alex Grinch wherever he’s running a defense)

Now, Grantham was nowhere near Grinch or Ferentz the Younger’s status. But still, the Florida team was struggling on defense. In 2020, the Florida fans were fearing what they called “Third and Grantham,” an adage that no matter the distance, Grantham’s units would surrender the first down and fail to stop the opposition. Despite a 9-3 season and top 10 finish, Florida’s defense would finish 74th nationally and eighth in the SEC in scoring defense, allowing 30.8 points per game, alongside ranking 83rd nationally and ninth in the SEC in total defense, allowing 428 yards per game.

Throughout the 2020 season, the Gator defense held back a historically efficient offense. They took bad angles. They lacked communication. They missed tackles.

Despite those issues, Mullen kept his longtime associate Grantham on the staff. Loyalty and all that, right?

Except there would be more of an onus on Grantham and his defensive unit. Florida is breaking in a new quarterback in either Emory Jones or Anthony Richardson.

And, speaking of loyalty, Mullen spent the offseason flirting with the NFL to try to find a job. Instead of recruiting - we’ll get to that later - Mullen was trying to court the New York Jets into bringing him to the pro ranks following Adam Gase’s firing.

With all of that coming in an offseason where Mullen’s offense - his calling card - would be breaking in a new quarterback, you can see how Florida fans were less excited heading into 2021. But that LSU win helps quiet some of those doubts. I mean, Grantham’s defense can’t be as bad as it was last season, right? Especially not with guys like Zachary Carter and Gervon Dexter back and safety Rashad Torrence II manning the secondary. Surely the unit had to improve, right?

The defense does marginally improve, but still sits in the middle range of the nation and SEC’s rankings. It’s Mullen’s baby, the offense, that struggles.

Emory Jones, a blue-chip prospect, was given the opportunity to start out of the gate ahead of uber-talented blue-chip redshirt freshman Anthony Richardson. Despite that goodwill coming from a top-10 finish in 2020, Mullen still bungles this battle, constantly flip-flopping the quarterbacks and not letting either establish a rhythm.

Florida regresses, hard. Maybe not to their 6-7 depths in real-life 2021, but let’s chalk it up to a non-contending season. 8-4 at best. Jones tosses way too many picks for a fourth-year player and Richardson flashes, but isn’t too effective over the entire season. A top-10 preseason polling disappears by midseason. Mullen has to answer for these mistakes.

He starts the process the same way he did in real life - canning Grantham. Sure, he’s a convenient scapegoat, but Grantham is in that position simply because his defense has dropped the ball. Just, not as hard as the offense, which ranked 116th in the nation in turnovers. Getting Grantham out may just be a band-aid on a bad situation, but it’s at least a step in the right direction. Now, Mullen has to do his part.

2022

Mullen’s 2020 surge to the top of the SEC and competitive Orange Bowl against Oklahoma earn him a mulligan in 2022. But make no mistake, his seat is scorching hot.

Sure, the on-field product slipping as it did in 2021 is enough to put Mullen on that hot seat, but Florida boosters and staff/s main concerns rest not on the field, but off of it. Mullen simply isn’t recruiting. His dalliance with the NFL last offseason took away from hitting the trail, and his “am I or aren’t I” attitude towards Florida pushed away some prospects.

And that’s not even considering the season of probation the program sat under in 2021 after Florida self-reported some violations. With the NCAA Committee on Infractions lobbing a ton of recruiting restrictions on the Gators paired with Mullen’s recruiting disinterest, talent isn’t choosing to come to Gainesville. The Swamp is getting drained.

Without any of that top-flight coming in, Mullen’s 2022 at Florida is looking different. Mostly because he’s still in the coaching chair.

You see, in our timeline, Mullen got canned after the 2021 season. Not here, as that one pesky win without a yeeted cleat bought him another season. But that also means that an already wild coaching carousel in 2021 gets even more chaotic.

In 2021, Florida was just one of many top-flight jobs available and the Gators were able to pry away Louisiana’s Billy Napier, known as a top-notch recruiter. Basically, the antithesis of what the Gators got from Mullen. But with Florida keeping Mullen in the Swamp for 2022, they lose out on Napier. But where does he end up?

Miami is out - they’re most certainly bringing in alumnus Mario Cristobal regardless of who’s on the market. Reports link Napier to TCU, Virginia Tech and LSU. Let’s break those down.

TCU was a two man race between Napier and SMU head coach Sonny Dykes. SMU put a massive offer on the table for Dykes, making him one of the highest-paid Group of Five coaches, but he ultimately won the job, taking the TCU role before Napier landed at Florida in real life. So TCU’s out.

What about SMU after losing Dykes? Unfortunately for Napier, the Mustangs zeroed in on Miami offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee pretty immediately after Dykes bolted for Fort Worth. Their backup plan was Justin Fuente, the recently-fired SMU coach. So that’s a no.

Virginia Tech cast a wide net on their search, but was never truly linked to Napier. We’ll assume the Hokies still land Brent Pry from Penn State.

So, what about LSU? They held the last major job on the market after USC nabbed Lincoln Riley and Florida brought in Napier. But wait, that didn’t happen in our timeline, did it?

LSU’s athletic director, Scott Woodward, wanted to aim high for someone that could build the program after Ed Orgeron’s up-and-down tenure. That became a lot harder after people like Lincoln Riley took other offers and hot names Mel Tucker, James Franklin and Dave Aranda netted massive extensions. Except for one thing - Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger reported that Woodward did not seriously pursue Napier. Even with all the in-state booster support for the then-Louisiana head coach.

So 2021’s carousel culminates with Brian Kelly (side note: can we do one of these without him being a major factor?) heading to Baton Rouge and Billy Napier and Dan Mullen staying in their previous jobs.

With Mullen’s quarterback controversy solved after Emory Jones left the program, Anthony Richardson is entrenched as his quarterback for 2022.

Still, the Gators sputter in 2022, falling to 6-7 behind inconsistent play from Richardson and a still-lacking defense. Two years in a row isn’t looking good for the already toasty seat under Mullen and it becomes too much. He’s fired before season’s end.

2023

I’ll skip the dramatics in the coaching carousel: Napier is going to Florida one year later than anticipated. Instead of 2022 being his first season, the former Ragin’ Cajun head coach jumps to Gainesville ahead of 2023. That shouldn’t be too big a deal, right? It just kicks back his program’s development by one season. Actually, it’s a big deal.

You see, while Florida struggled to a 6-7 season in Napier’s real-life debut in 2022, he was on the trail working to get past the apathy seen in Mullen’s tenure. And that means hounding a program-changing prospect. One that would become the face of his program today - D.J. Lagway.

The dual-threat Texan quarterback opened his recruitment in 2022. He took visits all across the nation, not set on attending a school close to home. Just one that could sell him on his development and playing opportunities. Along with Florida, schools like Clemson, Texas A&M and USC were hunting for his services. But that was with Napier leading the way. Would Mullen pursue him the same way?

Honestly, I doubt it. The question would be, how much legwork did Napier put into Lagway during that 2022 season? And could he make up the gap in recruiting against similarly massive programs if he was brought in for 2023 instead? To me, that’s a tough sell. Especially when Texas A&M was the main competition, with the Aggies impressing Lagway on a visit. While both schools would go through a coaching change during Lagway’s recruitment - Florida hiring Napier and Texas A&M hiring Mike Elko - the battle comes down to those schools.

It’s also clear that Elko and offensive coordinator Collin Klein pushed for Lagway incredibly hard towards the end of his recruiting cycle. Without Napier’s multi-year jump start on relationship-building with Lagway, let’s say he stays home and commits to the Aggies.

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Pulling the Strings

No matter what, Lagway wasn’t going to see considerable playing time as a freshman barring an injury - Florida would still bring in Graham Mertz, while Texas A&M would have Conner Weigman installed as the starting quarterback. Luckily for Lagway, opportunity would’ve come either way as we saw him fill in brilliantly for Mertz last season, while Weigman also suffered an injury and lost his job in 2024.

So where does that leave us? Unlike most exercises in the Historical Portal, we can follow this up until today.

There aren’t any major coaching repercussions. Napier likely would be on the hot seat without a red-hot Lagway saving his skin last season. And remember, he would be delayed one year in getting to Gainesville, so his seat right now would be as hot as it was last season. Elko would be firmly entrenched in Bryan-College Station like he is now, just with a generational quarterback in Lagway under center instead of a sneaky high quality quarterback like Marcel Reed.

Speaking of Reed, what would’ve happened to him? The four-star likely would’ve stayed committed to Ole Miss and would be in line with Austin Simmons to battle for the job after Jaxson Dart’s departure.

Mullen likely would’ve headed back to the ESPN desk, while the UNLV job presumably could’ve pulled him back to the sideline.

While this scenario isn’t the most impactful, it presents an interesting thought process - how could one game not affect an alternate history, but an alternate future? Where would Florida be without D.J. Lagway? Where would Texas A&M be with him? How would those teams fare in the future? And who would be the quarterback Napier ties his tenure to?

Unfortunately, there’s no way for us to know, as none of that has happened yet. But it is something fun to keep in mind as we get ready for the upcoming season.