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Playing the ‘what if’ game cuts both ways for Dogs

11:24 am July 16, 2010, by Bill King

What if Lindsay Scott's famous touchdown hadn't happened? (Associated Press)

I’m generally not real big on debating “what if” scenarios in sports, largely because there are so many moments in close games where a key play or two could have made the difference.

What if that player didn’t hang on to the ball? What if that tackle wasn’t missed? You can look at just about any big win or loss that wasn’t a blowout and see how the outcome could have changed if only something had or hadn’t happened.

But many fans enjoy these forays into alternative history, which is why ESPN’s “College Football Live” delves into such topics as the recent “Who wins the 1980 national title if Georgia’s Lindsay Scott doesn’t score vs. Florida?”

Those voting in the poll on ESPN.com for the most part concluded that Lindsay’s famous touchdown not happening would have meant the Dogs wouldn’t have won the 1980 championship, with 43 percent saying Pitt would have taken the title and 37 percent opting for Florida State.

However, 20 percent of the voters thought Georgia still would have been the national champs that year, and agreeing with them was Buck Belue, the Dogs’ quarterback that season. Belue wrote a blog on the subject in which he made a pretty convincing case that even if Scott hadn’t scored on that famous play, Georgia still could have won the game against Florida and kept its unbeaten record.

Trailing the Gators 21-20 with a minute left in the game, the Dogs didn’t expect to score on that play; they were just trying to keep alive a drive mainly aimed at getting into position for a field goal try by trusty Rex Robinson. Rex has even reminisced about how he missed seeing Lindsay score because he was busy preparing for what he expected to be a game-winning kick.

As Belue put it: “Rex told me he was good from 57 that day. In fact, Rex kicked two 57 yard field goals that season, and ended the season 4-6 from 50-plus. He was clutch. That was the plan all along. Let’s get Rex a shot to win it.”

So if Scott had been tackled at Georgia’s 40 on the big play instead of scoring, Belue says he would have hit Lindsay over the middle again. Then: “Drop one off to Herschel underneath would have been 10 yards. Scramble once for 10. Again, with one timeout to stop the clock, we could have run Herschel once. I liked our chances of doing this. What if Buck to Lindsay never happened? We still win the game on a Rex Robinson field goal.”

I’d like to think he’s right.

That discussion set me to thinking about any other “what if” moments for the Dogs with national championship implications, and the one that stood out was the South Carolina game in 2007, when the Dogs were held to four Brandon Coutu field goals in a 16-12 loss in Athens. That loss came to haunt Georgia late in the season when it was one of the hottest teams in the country but was basically out of contention for the BCS game because it didn’t even win the SEC East.

What if Tony Wilson had hung on to the ball he caught from Matthew Stafford when hit at the Gamecocks goal line? And there were other dropped or just-missed passes in the end zone for Georgia in that game.

A TD catch likely would have given the Dogs the win over South Carolina and a better conference record than Tennessee at the end of the season, even with the loss to the Vols. Georgia would have met LSU in the SEC championship game.

The way the Dogs were playing at that point, a win in Atlanta would have seemed likely. And that would have given the Dogs the shot against Ohio State in the BCS title game.

Yeah, thinking about things like that can drive you crazy.

Even so, feel free to offer up your own “what if” moments. …

139 comments Add your comment

BEST SCENARIO

July 16th, 2010
1:07 pm

Urban Myer and Tim Tebow are just a pair of cry babies.

Galen Hall

July 16th, 2010
1:10 pm

What if Carl Johnson didn’t have a sexual violence restraining order in Alachua County? What if Jamar Hornsby didn’t use the credit card of his dead roommates girlfriend racking up $2,800 in bills? What if Gator players Dee Webb, Andre Caldwell and Reggie Lewis didn’t get caught w/ a $60,000 SUV loaded with improperly registered AK’s and other machine guns while shooting at apartment windows for fun?

Delbert D.

July 16th, 2010
1:11 pm

So what are non-Gators, non-Jackets and guys who did play high school football?

SSIgator

July 16th, 2010
1:13 pm

What if UGA actually showed up against UF this year and at least made the game interesting?

Galen Hall

July 16th, 2010
1:19 pm

What if FU could actually get within a half-dozen games of UGA in the overall record before crowning themselves owners of the WLOCP?

SSIgator

July 16th, 2010
1:23 pm

What will all of the UGA fans talk about when UF actually passes UGA in the overall record? 1980 – so long ago.

Galen Hall

July 16th, 2010
1:30 pm

SSIllyGator – you gonna hold your breath until 2017 hoping for a win every year?

As much as I’d like to banter back and forth about the topic, I’m taking off early for the weekend. I’ll let my FU grads cover the office while I’m gone.

51-33, 35-14, and 45-19

July 16th, 2010
1:31 pm

This blog is no place for training. I’ll move on now.

What ifffff??///

July 16th, 2010
1:38 pm

What if Tech fans actually had somehwere meaningful to post besides here?
What if Auburn had gotten a shot at USC in 2004?
What if Southern Cal had taken care of business in 2006 against UCLA?
What if a year after lobbying for Michigan-Ohio State in 2006 Herbstreit and the boys at ESPN had taken the same tack with Georgia instead of decided now you have to win your conference championship?
What are gaytor fans going to do when the Dawgs win this year? Count on it.

DawginLex

July 16th, 2010
1:38 pm

UGA 6-4 vs the UT hillbillies this decade. 41-14 in Knoxville in 2003 after loudmouth Casey Claussen said in 2002 “We would have won if I played. I could have played with one arm tied behind my back.”

Casey played in 2003 41-14 UGA

Considering the beating that Derek dooley is taking right now and considering the beating that UT is gonna get in Sanford Stadium this fall, UT folks should abandon these blogs.

SSIGator

July 16th, 2010
1:44 pm

What if I wasn’t a 40 year old loser living in my mom’s basement in Gainesville with a shirtless poster of Tebow beside the bed?

Dorsey Hill

July 16th, 2010
1:54 pm

I’ve got a couple dated ones:

What if we could have gotten late fourth quarter stops against UT on 4th and 14 AND UF on 3rd and 13 in 1992. We ended up 10-2 losing to UT by 3 and UF by 2.

What if Robert Edwards hadn’t broke his foot vs. UT in 1995? To that point he was unstoppable: 12 carries, 152 yards and 2 td’s. He was never the same after that. (BTW: add the 5 td’s he scored in the opener vs. USC in the 2nd half and that’s 7 TD’s in less than 4 q’s of football. Not sure Herschel could top that.)