When looking at the U SPORTS football landscape, the story of every team’s identity has to start somewhere.
Whether it be an important signing or hiring, there’s always a moment in the past that can be viewed as a catalyst for why the present or future appears the way it does.
When you go back in history and change those catalytic moments, you’re dealt what sports fans like to call “What-If” scenarios.
It’s through “What-If” scenarios that the history of athletes, teams, and even the sport itself can look extremely different compared to what actually unfolded.
We’re looking at two intriguing U SPORTS football “What-If” scenarios of the last 10 years.
1. What If The Carleton Ravens Were Never Revived?
The year is 2011 and the Carleton Ravens have been a distant memory for over a decade, but not for long.
Privately funded by a group of faithful alumni, the Ravens are set to return to the OUA in 2013 and become the conference’s 11th team.
The first move the reborn Ravens make is hiring Steve Sumarah as their head coach. Sumarah has recently spent fourteen seasons at Saint Mary’s University, having served as the head coach of the Huskies for six of those seasons.
Sumarah doesn’t come alone. Along with him comes Saint Mary’s transfer quarterback Jesse Mills.
Equipped with a recruiting class that includes future All-Stars, All-Canadians, and CFLers such as Nate Behar, Nathan Hamlin, Tunde Adeleke, Dexter Brown, D'Sean Thelwell, Keith Graham, Stefano Napolitano, Michael Domagala, Kwabena Asare, Emmanuel Adusei, and Malcolm Carter, the young Ravens go 0-8 in 2013
Despite going winless in year one, the Ravens improved immensely in their second season. The growth of the 2013 class along with the addition of future All-Stars Justin Howell, Kene Onyeka, and KC Bakker help the Ravens go 4-4 in 2014.
The growth doesn’t stop there. In 2015, the seasoned Ravens become a sleeper Yates Cup contender and add future All-Star Guillaume Caron, Phil Iloki, Jesse Lawson, and Nathan Carter. Carleton secures their first winning season, going 5-3, but fall to the Guelph Gryphons in the OUA Semifinals.
For Carleton, year four was all or nothing. It was Vanier Cup or bust. With the class of 2013 all grown up, the Ravens returned in 2016 with the addition of future OUA All-Star Jayde Rowe and arguably the most athletic offensive line in the country.
Carleton would not go on to win that year’s Vanier Cup. In fact, they would fall to the Western Mustangs in the OUA Semifinals.
As Carleton missed the playoffs in 2017, one of the most unique rebuilds in U SPORTS history had reached its conclusion.
In just a four-year span, the Ravens had assembled one of the most talented rosters in the nation comprised of over 19 players who would go on to become either All-Stars, All-Canadians, or future CFLers.
For an expansion team, what Sumarah and his staff were able to accomplish was impressive. However, given the amount of elite talent that Carleton was able to recruit over four years, it’s hard to ponder how the OUA would have looked had the Ravens not returned in 2013.
Without the return of Carleton, where do 19 of the nation's top athletes - specifically those in that 2013 class - commit to playing out their university careers?
Due to the fact that Carleton became a football powerhouse, some would assume that in the absence of a Ravens rebirth, those players would have ended up at traditional powerhouses such as Western, McMaster, and Guelph. However, that may not necessarily have been the case.
In committing to Carleton during the early 2010s, some of the nation’s top athletes took a gamble and committed to building an elite football program from the ground up.
There was no previously built foundation that suggested the experiment would work. There was no evidence that supported the idea that the Ravens would rise to the heights they did within four seasons. There wasn’t even a guarantee that any of these athletes would see significant success in their collegiate careers. But a lot of them took the chance anyway.
Given the reality that all of these athletes wanted to take on a challenge and build a culture, would they have decided to do it elsewhere in the absence of a Ravens rebirth?
Could we have potentially seen stars from the 2013 class such as Nate Behar, Nathan Hamlin, and Tunde Adeleke take their talents to programs that have been rebuilding for years? If so, how does this change the fate of some of the OUA’s rebuilding teams had they landed key pieces from the original Ravens of 2013?
Of course, this could all just be extremely deep thinking.
Maybe they would have followed the status quo and committed to traditional powerhouses.
Nonetheless, The Carleton Ravens of the early-mid 2010s were too talented to not wonder what could have been had the team not returned altogether.
It’s a certified “What-If”.
2. What If Tyler Varga Never Left Western?
Nowadays, Jamal Murray is seen as the greatest athlete to ever come out of Kitchener, Ontario, and rightfully so. But long before Murray was engineering 3-1 comebacks, and orchestrating highlights with newly crowned NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, the athlete who many believed put Kitchener on the map was Tyler Varga.
He only spent one season in Canada, but what a season it was! Varga ran roughshod through the OUA in 2011 as a true freshman.
The Kitchener, Ontario native rushed for 1,156 yards while scoring 18 total touchdowns. Varga was also named a First Team OUA All-Star as well as OUA Rookie of the Year and U SPORTS Rookie of the Year.
To say Varga’s future in Canada was bright was an understatement. His rookie campaign served as an indication that the next great U SPORTS running back had finally arrived.
But then, in the 2011-12 offseason, Varga suddenly left Western as quick as he had arrived. Opting to transfer to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, Varga decided to take his talents to a Division 1 FCS school instead of staying in his home country.
To fans of Canadian football, the news of Varga’s transfer was heartbreaking. However, the reality was that he never truly had intentions of playing out the entirety of his collegiate career in Canada.
Towards his later high school years at Kitchener’s Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute, Varga was a highly recruited athlete who received a lot of attention from Division 1 schools in the NCAA. However, all the southern attention came to a halt when he broke his leg in his senior season.
With the status of his health uncertain, many Division 1 schools withdrew the offers they once made to Varga. This forced Varga to accept a U SPORTS offer, in hopes of using his rookie season as a tool to regain some of his long-lost Division 1 scholarships.
In the end, Yale won the Varga sweepstakes and played home to the Canadian tailback for four seasons.
As the U SPORTS world watched Varga shine down south, even the casual fan couldn’t help but wonder what could have been had he stayed at Western.
Despite their success in 2010, the Western Mustangs were still in the midst of rebuilding their identity. Only two years removed from the departure of Michael Faulds, Greg Marshall was still in search of the next great Mustang that would lead the program to long-term prosperity in the new decade.
At the time, the arrival of Varga ended that search, but Western was still one year away from adding the core offensive and defensive pieces who would go on to define the program after Varga’s departure.
In 2012, had Varga stayed in Canada, he would have been joined on offence by future All-Canadians Will Finch (QB) and George Johnson (WR). Western’s defence would have also seen the addition of future OUA All-Star Malcolm Brown (DB), followed by the addition of future All-Canadian Jesse McNair (DB) in 2013.
Yes, this means U SPORTS football fans could have been treated to a solid defence led by Brown and McNair, as well as potentially one of the most dominant offences in U SPORTS history headlined by Varga, Finch, and Johnson.
What if Varga never left Western? Assuming he plays a full four-year career, how do the OUA and U SPORTS history books look from 2012 to 2014? Does Western win more than one Yates Cup within that time span? Does Western’s Vanier Cup drought end before 2017?
From a personnel perspective, does Alex Taylor still come to Western in 2014? If not, where does he go? Being a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba does Taylor even choose to come to the OUA at all? How about Yannick Horou? Does the 2012 OUA Rookie of the Year tailback still commit to Western if Varga is on the roster?
What about Will Finch? Does he still statistically become one of the greatest Canadian quarterbacks of all time with Varga in his backfield? In addition, Finch chose to retire early in 2015 after suffering too many concussions throughout his collegiate career. If he had played his first three seasons with Varga, does that change his injury history? If so, does Finch ever consider returning for a fifth year in 2016? If he does, what happens to Chris Merchant? What U SPORTS school does he transfer to in 2016?
It’s clear that Tyler Varga’s departure is more than just the case of a star running back opting to transfer to an NCAA school. His departure is a pivotal moment in U SPORTS history as it single-handedly paved the way for league history to unfold the way it did for the majority of the 2010s.
The questions can go on forever, but one thing that’s clear is that Tyler Varga staying at Western is one of the most intriguing U SPORTS football “What-If” scenarios not only of the last 10 years but of all time.
