I'm going to propose two "what if" questions and see what everyone here thinks.

1. What if West Virginia had beat Pitt in 2007? This would have put WVU #1 at the end of the season and OSU #2 (assuming Oklahoma still beat Missouri). This means that Michigan still would have been without a coach and LS and Les Miles would not have been playing for the national championship.

2. What is Tressel and Rodriguez were still coaching at OSU and Michigan this year? What would the final regular season record have been for each school?
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1. Had Pitt not upset WVU I think that Les Miles would be the coach the Michigan right now. Since LSU would not have been playing in the title game and since Rodriguez clearly would not have left the team he just led to the title game, Miles would have agreed to take over in Ann Arbor. I think that Jimbo Fisher would have been hired to replace Miles in Baton Rouge (he was a former offensive coordinator there), buying Bobby Bowden more time at FSU, where he would still be coaching today and coach just long enough to pass JoePa.

2. If Tressel were at OSU this year I honestly see them finishing with a 10-2 record. They lost too many close games this year that he would have won. If Rodriguez was at Michigan I think that the Wolverines would have finished 9-3. That would have created an interesting problem in Ann Arbor, because RichRod was never going to take that program where they want to go, but had they given him one more season he might have done just enough not to get fired. Normally I don't think three years is enough time to determine if a coach can be successful, but Michigan clearly made the right move firing him after last season.

tl;dctr

Good question. I honestly believe that West Virginia team would have won the national title too. I remember watching that Backyard Brawl in pure amazement that it was close. Pittsburgh was pretty bad, they couldn't really move the ball yet somehow managed to contain WVU's offense, which for most of the year, looked unbeatable.

Upsets at the college level don't shock me anymore, but the way that season played out in the final 3 weeks won't ever happen again. We always speak each year how crazy things are, but that was nuts. I remember watching LSU lose to Kentucky, climb all the way back up to #1, lose POST-THANKSGIVING to Arkansas...fall to 6th in both polls and 7th in the BCS and somehow manage to have every piece of the puzzle fit perfectly for them to get to the national title game.