Change history. You decide

[temery]

*14 game schedule

17-0, including playoffs.

 

[TheHorde]

As a Patriots fan I look at the low hit Pollard made on Tom Brady in week 1 of 2008 and the dirty low hit on Gronk in the 2011 AFC Championship Game. That Super Bowl would have been a lot different with a healthy Gronk. Health clearly plays a big role in outcomes. UConn fans know this well with Dyson in 2009. But injuries are part of the game. Sometimes teams are fortunate and stay healthy when other teams don’t, and sometimes they’re not as lucky. You have to be lucky and good to win.

Fun fact…Kevin Faulk had a one game suspension the week Tom Brady had his knee blown out. Sammy Morris blew the pass protection pickup on Pollard. If Faulk was not suspended, would Brady have stayed healthy and upright? I think so. Could the Patriots have won it that year with a healthy Brady? It’s amazing how events can domino sometimes.

 

[Zissou]

For pro, although I’m not a Tigers fan, I’ll go with Armondo Galarraga’s imperfect game. The badly missed call at first base cost him the perfect game. Let’s get that call right and put him in the record books for his earned perfect game.

On the other hand, the incident allowed him to display his class and sportsmanship in the face of the injustice. So what’s better, the perfect game? Or the injustice, and his display of character? I’m not sure. Maybe history should not be changed.

 

[Zissou]

17-0, including playoffs.

View attachment 102302

Including 2 quarterbacks leading the the team. Earl stepping in for the injured Bob, only to turn it back over to Bob for the Super Bowl.

 

[Tyler2Rings]

2011 Fiesta Bowl. UConn over Oklahoma, paves way to future success in football.

Not a game result, but how about the Big East accepts Penn State in 1985 and UConn elevates football to D1 15 years earlier

 

[Teddie1056]

UConn over NMSU. Teddy Allen. We should have won that game and that team was special. Hated to see RJ Cole end his career like that. I truly think that if we win that game we could have gone far.

 

[temery]

Including 2 quarterbacks leading the the team. Earl stepping in for the injured Bob, only to turn it back over to Bob for the Super Bowl.

yep. He was around 40 years old and started most of the season when Griese got hurt, yet Griese gets the credit for the perfect season.

I coached Nick Buoniconti's son when he was a kid. Nice family.

 

[Jaydumo20]

17-0, including playoffs.

View attachment 102302

The most frustrating sports phenomenon- wondering if a team/player is worthy of their success given different circumstances out of their control.
14 game football season, the covid world series, the dead ball era in baseball, no 3 point line, Frosh ball at the college level, etc. We'll never know
*I think that your dolphins were good enough to win an extra 3 garbage games at end of season.

 

[Zissou]

yep. He was around 40 years old and started most of the season when Griese got hurt, yet Griese gets the credit for the perfect season.

I coached Nick Buoniconti's son when he was a kid. Nice family.

Nick Buoniconti? No, that’s not it.

 

[Zissou]

The No-Name Defense

 

[RichZ]

Laetner 1990.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

2011 Fiesta Bowl. UConn over Oklahoma, paves way to future success in football.

This is not a bad idea.

Change the 24-3 loss to Cincy in football in 2007. If we win that game, we go into the last game of the year 10-1 playing WVU in a de-facto CFP semifinal.

You are also on the right track.

Another possibility is any one of the three early losses in 2011 (P's first season). We had leads at Vandy and home against Iowa St throughout most of each game and fell apart over the last eight plus minutes. Against Western Michigan we fell behind early and spent the remainder of the game playing catchup. Every time we got there we had a lapse and let them score.

We were clearly the more talented team in each game, the one where we never led (WMU) was against the least talented of the three opponents.

A win in any of those games would have gotten us a bowl invitation (would have been fifth consecutive & sixth in eight seasons). A better start to the P tenure (especially when factoring in the precarious situation that developed in realignment) may have prevented the program from falling off a cliff.

 

[GemParty]

Lots of history to alter.

 

[businesslawyer]

Duke 1990 was 1000 times worse for me. I still hate Duke to this day because of that game.

I think that's right. Of the three UConn candidates, the loss to Florida was not a regional final and we didn't deserve to win that day anyway. Even before the two missed three throws. Mason -- never should have been a game decided by Denham's 3 rimming out in OT. The loss to Duke would be the one I change (assuming no butterfly effect), even though we probably wouldn't have beaten UNLV in the Final Four. Tate didn't even need to stay in bounds. He just needed to gain possession before landing out of bounds and flipped the ball down court.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

2006 George Mason is the only correct answer.

I disagree here. That team (save a couple of instances from a couple of players who didn't see enough court time) wasn't willing to put the effort in. Not only did they deserve what they got, it would be a complete disservice to all of the quality JC and DH teams that worked their collective backsides off only to fall short if a gift like this was given to that squad.

 

[aburks41]

18-1.

Or the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma. We win that game, does the ACC take us instead of Louisville? Big 10 instead of Rutgers?

 

[gsmooth]

UConn over NMSU. Teddy Allen. We should have won that game and that team was special. Hated to see RJ Cole end his career like that. I truly think that if we win that game we could have gone far.

No, no, no. Losing that game made Hurley introspective and change his ways of always having a team grind out wins with good-very good defense (not excellent though) and mediocre offense. That meant as long as the opposition played good enough defense and got hot for a little bit offensively or had one player get hot offensively, they would win and UConn/Rhode Island would lose.

Now UConn is excellent on offense and runs very high level offense and their defense has gotten better to a level we can say is excellent.

I say, leave that loss to NMSU.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

No, no, no. Losing that game made Hurley introspective and change his ways of always having a team grind out wins with good-very good defense (not excellent though) and mediocre offense. That meant as long as the opposition played good enough defense and got hot for a little bit offensively or had one player get hot offensively, they would win and UConn/Rhode Island would lose.

Now UConn is excellent on offense and runs very high level offense and their defense has gotten better to a level we can say is excellent.

I say, leave that loss to NMSU.

This.

And another poster was absolutely correct in not wanting to change anything for basketball. What we currently have in men's basketball is the result of every step we've taken along the way. Changing one misstep could have prevented up from taking a later step that was necessary to get us where we are.

 

[NCHusky91]

1990 all the way. I was at the wake at Gampel after they returned from Jersey, it sucked. And then a long 9 years until they made it.

The 1994 team ran out of gas long before the Florida game. They lost to the stink in the BE semis and struggled with Rider (?!?) and Satan’s GW team before Donyell’s alleged South Beach antics.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

Duke 1990 was 1000 times worse for me. I still hate Duke to this day because of that game.

I would stop have nightmares where I’m yelling at Tate to just bat the ball in the back court and let the clock keep running
Howrver:
As a geneoligist you understand changing any outcome could have consequences well beyond your imagination.
Our very existence is predicated on unchanging event.
So I’m content with the revenge of 1999 and the irony of a Hurley as our coach for two more. So the greater good may be a direct result of that loss.

 

[uconnbill]

Not changing any game results. I got 6 men's bb and 4 World Series titles since 1999. The journey was perfect.

My alternative history for college:

Mark Emmert drinks bad moonshine at LSU's title celebration in 2003; becomes even more of a drooling idiot than he already was; and never gets the NCAA job.

For the pros:

Saint Derek Jeter's rampant PED abuse is finally made public right before his HOF eligibility, causing massive cognitive dissonance among Yankee fans who are certain that David Ortiz was on the juice.

Oh well.

yeah when we all know Big Papi used steroids but it was ignored by the media

 

[uconnbill]

UConn's win against Oklahoma propels them into the ACC which raises the football and gives basketball continued time playing and beat Syracuse, Pitt, and other ACC teams

 

[Tenspro2002]

Great prompt. I'll go Gordon Haywards shot banking in to beat Duke in the 2010 championship

Good answer good answer.

Wisconsin over Duke in 2015 would have made that team legendary.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Sox and Giant fan?? Odd combo

I am one and may be the only one I know.

In high school in the early 00s there were tons of Sox/Pats, some Yanks/Giants, and a sickening number of Yanks/Pats frontrunners, but I was alone as the opposite.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

I am one and may be the only one I know.

In high school in the early 00s there were tons of Sox/Pats, some Yanks/Giants, and a sickening number of Yanks/Pats frontrunners, but I was alone as the opposite.

I’m Yanks/Pats but I’m also old enough to have put in my time watching some truly awful teams in the 80’s and early 90’s.