You probably remember what did happen. But have you ever wondered what could have happened? Let’s play “What If”
Hall of Fame Second Baseman Rogers Hornsby once said “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” And I can sort of relate. The dog days of early May are tough for College Football fans. Spring ball is done, rosters are (mostly) settled, and actual games are still four months away. Less than ideal.
There are different ways to cope. You can take Rogers Hornsby’s approach, but you may end up looking like that Pablo Escobar meme. You can immerse yourself in a new hobby to take your mind off the fact that your favorite team isn’t playing on Saturdays yet, but some hobbies can get expensive quickly.
Or you can do what I do, and let your mind wander. It’s not for everyone, certainly, but I like to think about how different things might look if you could go back and change just one thing. That questionable Pass Interference call in Overtime of the 2003 National Championship game that gave Ohio State another chance? What if Terrance Cody doesn’t block that Field Goal attempt against Tennessee in 2009? Does one-loss Alabama get into the BCS Title game over three unbeaten teams (TCU, Boise State, Cincinnati), where they defeat Texas for Nick Saban’s first National Championship with the Tide? Rabbit holes galore!
One of my favorite “What If” scenarios was an off-field incident that affected the fortunes of three separate College Football powerhouses: What if Cam Newton didn’t steal a laptop in 2008?
Let’s Review What Actually Happened
Cam Newton
Newton, in case your either forgot or didn’t realize it, saw action in garbage time as a Freshman for the 2007 Gators, backing up Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. He missed almost all of the 2008 season due to injury, as Florida went 13-1 and defeated Oklahoma 24-14 to win the National Championship. However, Newton was arrested that November on Larceny, Burglary, and Obstruction charges related to the theft of a laptop. He entered a Pre-Trial diversion program in return for the charges being dropped, but his time at Florida was done.
He announced his intentions to leave the program after the SEC Championship Game. After a year at Blinn College (a Texas JUCO) he committed to Gene Chizik and the Auburn Tigers.
His lone year at Auburn in 2010 was a start-to-finish LASER SHOW. You’ve probably seen that insane run against LSU more times than you can count. His 2,854 yards and 30 Touchdowns passing, supplemented by another 1,473 yards and 20 TD rushing, led to a bevy of awards. The Heisman Trophy. The Davey O’Brien, Maxwell, and Walter Camp Awards. First-Team All-American and the AP Player of the Year. Oh, and a 14-0 record and National Championship. Full Plate.
Newton went on to be the #1 overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft and had a great run for the Carolina Panthers that included a Super Bowl appearance and the 2015 NFL MVP Award.
Florida
Florida, meanwhile, ran it back in 2009 without Newton on the roster and dominated much of the season. They lost to Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, knocking them out of the BCS title picture. After drumming Cincinnati 51-24 in the Sugar Bowl to finish 13-1, they ended up #3 in the Final AP Poll. But Tebow’s eligibility was up. There was dysfunction in the program off the field. And a series of health-related issues for Urban Meyer made his future with the program a little cloudy.
The 2010 Gators went 8-5 in a season marked by offensive inconsistency. They scored 14 points or fewer in four of their five losses. John Brantley, Tebow’s replacement, passed for 2,061 yards and threw more interceptions (10) than touchdowns (9). Continued off-field issues and truly shitty quarterback play exacerbated Meyer’s health problems, and he “retired” at season’s end.
Florida cycled between Will Muschamp (28-21), Jim McElwain (22-12), and Dan Mullen (34-15) over the next 11 years. The offense took a nosedive under Muschamp, though the defense was consistently very good. McElwain was then hired to fix the offense and win more games; he did neither of those things. Mullen did fix the offense and got off to a great start with two double-digit win seasons. But his total indifference to defense and recruiting led to his demise towards the tail end of 2021. Billy Napier is trying to right the ship after a 6-7 debut season. It hasn’t been the same for Florida since those Meyer/Tebow years, to say the least.
Urban Meyer
Speaking of Meyer, through the miracles of modern medicine (and by this I mean “not coaching John Brantley”), he was healed enough to return to coaching after just 11 months, taking the Ohio State job. A team that’s won 66 games the previous six seasons having a job vacancy will cure what ails ya, I guess! Meyer went 83-9 in seven seasons in Columbus, winning a National Championship in 2014. He retired (again) citing “health reasons” after the 2018 season. That retirement didn’t last, either, but the less said about his Jaguars tenure, the better.
Auburn
Auburn has spent the dozen years since that magical 2010 season trying to find something resembling stability and normalcy. For the most part, they’ve failed. They were 11-14 the next two years, resulting in Chizik’s dismissal and Gus Malzahn’s hiring. Malzahn immediately went 12-2 and nearly won the National Championship game against Florida State in his first year. The next seven seasons were an up-and-down affair that saw him winning games he shouldn’t have, losing games he shouldn’t have, and being on a perpetual Hot Seat. After a year and a half of the Bryan Harsin Experience (which has its own “What If” that we’ll discuss some other day), they turned to Hugh Freeze this past offseason. Because, you know, nothing says “Stability” and “Normalcy” like Hugh Freeze.
So what if Cam Newton had stayed at Florida?
In some alternate universe, Cam Newton doesn’t steal that laptop. Let’s take a stab at what the rest of that universe looks like for all involved. There were reports at the time of his transfer that he was looking at possible expulsion for academic fraud issues, but we’ll ignore those for now because those are uncorroborated reports and not all that concrete. Plus, that would defeat the purpose here.
So let’s start with some easy conclusions:
-Blinn College does not win the 2009 NJCAA National Championship.
-Florida’s 2009 season stays largely the same; not even Doctor Strange could find an alternate universe in which Tim Tebow is not the starting Quarterback for Florida.
-Newton takes a Medical Redshirt for 2008, spends 2009 as Tebow’s backup, and enters 2010 as the unquestioned starter with two years of eligibility left.
-Auburn does not win the 2010 National Championship. Chizik was 19-19 in his three other seasons, so it’s likely he gets fired after 2012 regardless. If anything, he gets let go after 2011.
Those were all pretty straightforward, right?
The next part of any “What If” is making some logical conclusions based on what we know. Some of these may require a little bit of assumption as well, but we’ll try to not get too crazy with the hypotheticals.
-If Newton has a 2010 season for Florida that is anything remotely close to what he did at Auburn, there’s no chance Florida loses 5 games. None. So we’ll give them wins against LSU (lost 33-29, putting up 243 yards of total offense with two turnovers) and Mississippi State (lost 10-7).
-Can we give them another win? They lost 36-14 to South Carolina in a game where they ran for 35 yards, had 226 Total Yards, and had just 11 First Downs while turning the ball over twice. If Cam Newton can drag the 2010 Auburn team to an unbeaten championship season, I’ll say he can make enough of a difference to get the Gators a win here.
-Auburn goes 7-5 and wins a mid-tier Bowl game to finish 8-5, just like 2009 and 2011.
-Florida’s 11-2 record and Newton’s stellar play have a profound positive impact on Meyer’s health, and he doesn’t retire. This also has implications for Texas and their DC/Coach-in-Waiting, Will Muschamp.
Taking the “What If” to 2011 and beyond
This is where we take advantage of an opportunity to use our imagination. Let’s get weird.
What happens to Cam?
His 2010 season at Florida isn’t quite as transcendent as the year at Auburn, so he comes back in order to improve his draft stock. Instead of Florida going 7-6 under Muschamp and having an anemic offense in 2011, they put up another 11-2 season under Meyer (Newton turns those losses against Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida State into wins). They still lose to Alabama and LSU, but in much closer games. He finishes 2nd in the Heisman Trophy race to Robert Griffin III, and is drafted 3rd Overall by the Cleveland Browns in the 2012 NFL Draft (FYI: Carolina takes Von Miller first overall in 2011). Because the Browns cannot have nice things, EVER, he battles injuries for six seasons before retiring on the advice of his doctors.
Urban Meyer
Florida gives Meyer a contract extension through the 2017 season at over $5 million per year. He goes 55-13 in his final five seasons with the Gators, playing in 3 SEC Championship Games but never getting over the hump against Alabama. He gets hired by the Jacksonville Jaguars in January 2017, replacing Gus Bradley. Unfortunately, his time in Jacksonville ends the same no matter which universe we’re in. Florida replaces him with Mississippi State Head Coach (and former Florida OC) Dan Mullen, who still ends up getting fired because the defense sucks and he’s getting his ass kicked on the recruiting trail by SEC rivals.
Auburn
Malzahn doesn’t have that 2010 Auburn offense to put on his resume, so he stays at Arkansas State when Chizik is inevitably fired after the 2012 season. Auburn eventually settles on Western Kentucky (and former Arkansas) Head Coach, Bobby Petrino. The circumstances surrounding his dismissal from Arkansas are troublesome, but the Tigers can’t resist the chance to hire a guy who went 11-2 and won the Cotton Bowl in his last year with the Razorbacks. Auburn gonna Auburn.
Ohio State
Unimpressed with the 6-6 season that Interim Coach Luke Fickell produced in 2011, OSU looks outward for their next Head Coach. They quickly zero in on a prime target. A young Defensive Coordinator, the 2009 Broyles Award winner and an Ace recruiter who was coming off a second National Championship in three years.
On January 16, 2012 Kirby Smart is introduced as Head Coach at Ohio State. He retains Fickell as his Defensive Coordinator, and the Buckeyes have a reasonably successful 4-year run, nearly making the inaugural College Football Playoff in 2014 despite the loss of their top two Quarterbacks, Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett. When Smart is unable to resist the temptation of returning to his alma mater after the 2015 season, Fickell is promoted to Head Coach, fulfilling the former Buckeye’s lifelong dream to roam the sidelines in the Horseshoe while wearing a sweater vest.
Wow, that’s a lot. Is this what you do with your spare time?
Yeah, occasionally, and I’m not apologizing for it either. But that’s not the point. The point is that just because something could have gone differently, doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone would have benefitted if it had. That said, it’s still sometimes fun to kick back, crack open a cold one, and wonder to yourself “What If?”. It’s either that or staring out the front window, waiting for Fall.
Man, the season can’t get here fast enough.
Eric Mulhair is the Co-Host of The South Endzone Podcast and a contributing writer for Belly Up Sports covering College Football. You can follow him on Twitter for the most up-to-date info on Podcast/Article releases, or even just to argue about College Football.
