In its first nine seasons UTSA football has won 45 games out of the 106 they have played. Of those 45 wins 18 have been by eight points or fewer. What if some of those close wins had been losses?
The What If Series: What If...An Earlier Debut | What If...A Different first coach | What If...The Saints come marching in and stay in SA | What If...A different Conference Realignment | What If...The Roadrunner QBs | What If...The Roadrunners in March | What If...The near misses
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Through the first seven games of the 2011 season the Roadrunners had either won big, lost big or lost heartbreakingly. As they entered their game against Georgia State on October 29 they held a 2-5 record with their two wins being by scores of 31-3 and 54-7. They had most recently lost in double overtime to South Alabama. The game against Georgia State proved to be the first time a Roadrunner team would leave victorious in a close contest as they beat the Panthers 17-14 in overtime.
That win over Georgia State proved to be the Roadrunners only close win in 2011 as their next win came in the season finale when they banished the Minot State Beavers back to North Dakota on the short end of a 49-7 score. In 2011 the Roadrunners went 1-3 in their close games.
In 2012 the Roadrunners had better luck in the one-score games as they went 4-0 followed by 3-1 in 2013 and 3-3 in 2014. Between 2015 and 2017 the Roadrunners were 4-11 in close games. In recent years the one-score games have been few as UTSA went 1-1 in 2018 and 2-0 in 2019 in close contests.
What if some of those close wins had turned out to be losses. What might it have meant for wins to have been losses?
What if Sean Ianno misses the field goal at South Alabama?
There was one program first that UTSA was not able to cross of the list in the 2011 season. In the inaugural season the Roadrunners played four games away from the Alamo City and lost all four. Their closest loss on the road in 2011 had been by three points in the final road game at McNeese State.
UTSA would get a chance to notch that first road win in the 2012 season opener as the schedule placed them in Mobile to face the South Alabama Jaguars. In 2011 the Jaguars had snuck out of San Antonio with a 30-27 win in double overtime.
The 2012 season opener was played on a humid saturday afternoon at Ladd-Peebles Stadium and saw the lead change hands like it was a hot potato. There were five lead changes in the game, four of those coming in the fourth quarter. Sean Ianno had made three field goal attempts on the afternoon, his third make pushing the Roadrunner lead to 30-24 with 6:32 left in the game. South Alabama retook the lead less than four minutes later.
With 2:38 left to play the Roadrunners started their final drive of the game at their own 46. Before they could run a play they were called for a false start and pushed back to their own 41. Eric Soza then led the offense on a drive that got to the South Alabama 34 yard line with 23 seconds left. Ianno came on to attempt his fourth field goal of the day, this one from 51 yards out. It took seven seconds for Ianno's kick to sail toward the uprights. The ball sailed between them and proved to be the winning margin for the Roadrunners in a 33-31 triumph. It was not only the first road win in program history but also the first win over a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent. But what if Ianno missed his fourth attempt? How might that have affected the Roadrunners in the ensuing weeks of 2012?
The Ianno make gave UTSA the 33-31 win and springboarded the Roadrunners to a 5-0 start. UTSA didn't lose its first game of the season until the sixth contest when they fell to Rice on the Owls Centennial homecoming celebration.
If Ianno misses against South Alabama the Roadrunners would have lost to the Jaguars in heartbreak for the second straight year. UTSA would have returned home and likely dispatched A&M-Commerce as they did in real life. The next best chance for a road win for UTSA would have been at Georgia State. If they go into that game 1-1 instead of 2-0 it is still possible they come away with the win and that becomes the first road win in school history.
If UTSA falls to both South Alabama and Georgia State then their first road win might have come at New Mexico State which was the Roadrunners first ever conference game.
The Ianno make helped springboard UTSA to a 5-0 start to the season. The Roadrunners lost four straight after that 5-0 start and then finished the season with three straight wins to notch an 8-4 record that still stands as the best season in school history record wise.
If Ianno misses UTSA would be looking 4-1 at best after five games and possibly even 3-2 or 2-3. The final record in 2012 could have been quite different if the final kick against South Alabama had floated in a different direction in the Mobile air. It could have been that eight wins remained an unreached plateau by UTSA instead of what it is now, the mark to which all subsequent Roadrunner teams have yearned to reach and surpass but none have succeeded since.
What if UTSA doesn't beat Baylor?
The 2017 season would turn out to be memorable for Roadrunner fans for several different reasons. For one thing the Roadrunners only played 11 games that season as their season opener against Houston was cancelled because of Hurricane Harvey. For another it proved to be the final winning season the team would experience in the 2010s. Perhaps the most memorable thing about 2017 was just one game.
That one game would be what turned out to be the season opener on September 9. UTSA hit the road up I-35 to Waco to take on the Baylor Bears. The 2017 Bears it would turn out were closer to the late 90s Bears than the most recent 2010s Bears in that they were bad. Abysmally bad. Winnie the Pooh was more ferocious than the 2017 squad from Baylor.
A week before welcoming UTSA to McLane Stadium the Bears had lost to FCS-member Liberty on the north bank of the Brazos. The Bears would start 2017 with eight straight losses and eventually finish with a 1-11 record. Including the loss to UTSA, Baylor was 0-6 at home in 2017 after having only lost four games at home in the first three seasons at McLane Stadium.
It seemed the stars had aligned for UTSA to finally get their first win over a power five opponent. Neither team was able to score until the second quarter when Baylor took advantage of a Matt Guidry fumble on a punt return and scored on a one-play 20 yard drive to go up 7-0. The Roadrunners answered on their next drive by chewing up 8 minutes off the clock and scoring a tying touchdown right before halftime.
UTSA added a touchdown in the third quarter and a Victor Falcon field goal at the start of the fourth quarter to lead 17-7. Baylor got their final points on a field goal with 2:40 left to play. UTSA then ran out the clock on their next possession to claim a victory over a power-five opponent for the first time. But what if Baylor had managed to beat the Roadrunners in 2017? How might the rest of the season have turned out for the Roadrunners?
For one thing a loss to Baylor in 2017 would have been more crushing to the Roadrunners than the close losses to Arizona in 2014 and Arizona State in 2016. Those were close losses against good teams. In the long term it would have soured the Roadrunners for the rest of the season. It probably can't be quantified how crushing a loss to an eventual 2-10 Baylor (Assuming all their other games after UTSA have the same result) would have been to the Roadrunners. UTSA eventually fell back to earth in October when they lost back to back close games to Southern Miss and North Texas.
I still think UTSA would have beaten the Southern Jaguars at home the next week but things would have been interesting in the third game which was the trip to San Marcos to face Texas State. In 2017 the Roadrunners, riding the momentum of a 2-0 start, crushed the Bobcats like a folding table at a tailgate, 44-14. If they enter that game at 1-1 it might be closer and there might be a chance for Texas State to beat the Roadrunners.
As it was the Roadrunners finished 2017 with a 6-5 record but half of their games were decided by one score and they were 2-4 in those games. The lows that would be hit in 2018 and 2019 were just hiding under the surface toward the end of 2017. If UTSA hadn't beat Baylor in 2017 those lows might have been revealed earlier. Does that mean Wilson is gone after 2018 instead of 2019 we can never know for sure.
One thing is for sure. UTSA was fortunate to beat Baylor in 2017. The Bears were improved in 2018 and by 2019 were ready to cast the Roadrunners out like they'd forgot to bring a covered dish to the potluck.
What if Sackett can't beat Marshall in 2017
As UTSA entered their home finale on November 18, 2017 they were sitting on a 5-4 record, needing one win in their last two to reach bowl eligibility, two out of two would have almost certainly punched a bowl ticket. The home finale of 2017 would see the Roadrunners host the Marshall Thundering Herd. Marshall entered the game with a 7-3 record, having already punched their ticket to a bowl game.
Any of the 20,148 who filed into the Alamodome that Saturday evening hoping for an explosion of offense would have quickly found out they came to the wrong game. Both the Roadrunner and Herd defenses stymied their opponents. After the first quarter the two teams were only separated by three points. Those points having come from a 24-yard field goal by UTSA's true freshman kicker Jared Sackett with 3:00 left to play in the opening frame.
By halftime UTSA had doubled up their advantage thanks again to Sackett who booted another 24-yard field goal with just seven seconds remaining before the intermission.
That proved to be the final points scored by either team until the 1:31 mark of the fourth quarter when Marshall got on the board with a touchdown. After leading 6-0 for so long it seemed set in stone, UTSA was now down 7-6. They had enough time to get into field goal range. The Roadrunners got to a spot that gave Sackett 40 yards to try his third field goal. Sackett drilled the field goal and UTSA took a 9-7 lead with two seconds left. But what if Sackett misses that last field goal? What if he missed one of the other two?
If Sackett misses the final field goal UTSA would have lost the game 7-6 and their record would have dropped to 5-5. They would have gone into the final game at Louisiana Tech needing to win in a place they have never won at before just to reach six wins. As it was even at 6-4 the Roadrunners were unable to win at Louisiana Tech and finished 6-5, good enough for a bowl spot if there had been enough bowl spots available.
If Sackett misses one of the previous two field goals he is probably not in a position to try a game winner as UTSA would be trailing 7-3 on the final drive and would need a touchdown to win. Whether they get that touchdown or not is tough to say but based on the offensive struggles that day and in the last half of 2017, the odds would have been against it.
By making all three field goals Sackett became a hero for the Roadrunners and helped lift them to six wins for the second straight season. It also led to one of the great headlines in UTSA history: Sackett 9, Marshall 7.
What does UTSA look like if some of the wins had turned out to be losses?
As we saw last week, with the what if losses turned to wins, the changing of an outcome could have changed the fortunes of UTSA. If they are unable to beat South Alabama in the 2012 season opener their first road win would have come later. It might have been at Georgia State or New Mexico State. A loss to South Alabama likely prevents the 2012 Roadrunners from setting a school record for wins at eight.
In 2017 if UTSA had lost to Baylor it would have been one of the most crushing losses in school history, especially if UTSA had been leading and couldn't hold on. The loss to Baylor along with a loss to Marshall later in the year would have meant UTSA finished 2017 with a 4-7 record. The pressure that was on Frank Wilson in 2018 and 2019 would have ratcheted up even more if the 2017 Roadrunners had followed the 2016 bowl trip with a 4-7 record.
Even with a win over Baylor if UTSA had not beaten Marshall their 2017 record would have ended up 5-6 which still would have been considered by most of the fanbase as a disappointment after the thrills of 2016 when the Roadrunners were 6-6 heading into the New Mexico Bowl.
A losing record in 2017 would have also made the 2016 season look like an anomaly in a run of losing seasons from 2014 to 2019. As it is the 2016 and 2017 seasons look like bright spots in what have been an up and down couple of seasons for the Roadrunners.
NEXT WEEK: What If...A different outcome in the New Mexico Bowl
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