Let's Play the What-If Game!

41 Days Til' Kickoff!!

As suggested in yesterday's thread by our own The_GT_LineageX11, let's play our favorite game of "What-If". As with any team (but especially ours), there's always lots of speculation around how things would have turned out if one instance had gone differently.

The situation I want to examine was in 2010 in Blacksburg, when Joshua Nesbitt broke his arm. Let's say that doesn't happen. Consider the following:

• We lost that game. However, if we had not lost Nesbitt for over half of it, all signs indicate that we would have won.
• We lost the following week to Miami and beat Duke after that -- those would stay the same. However, in the regular season finale, we lost to uga by a missed extra point, even with a relatively inexperienced Tevin Washington at the helms. I find it hard to believe that we wouldn't have won with Nesbitt in charge.
• That puts us at 8-4, as opposed to 6-6. I won't speculate on what bowl that would have had us in, but it certainly would have been better than the Independence Bowl.

That's all fine and dandy, but find out why it's likely not as sweet as it sounds after the jump.

Clearly it seems as though we would have ended up having a more successful end to our season in 2010. However, consider this:

• If Tevin Washington had not been afforded those 4 starts at the end of the season following significant playing time on a Thursday night in Blacksburg, he would have had almost no experience coming into 2011 (prior to that game, he had recorded stats in a total of 4 career games, 2 being against FCS schools).
• Without that experience against talented defenses, Tevin would have been unprepared for UNC, and we would have lost that game. Similarly, we would have risked losses to NC State and Maryland (2 games where we did NOT look good), and likely Clemson as well....and with 3 more losses, Tech would not have been bowl eligible.

What say you, FTRS readers? Is this a reasonable breakdown? Would an unbroken forearm of Josh Nesbitt have crippled us in 2011, regardless of how beneficial it would have been for the remainder of 2010? Would love to hear your thoughts, as well as your What-If Game scenarios.