I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but I love a good alternative history story. These are stories where a crucial piece is changed creating a highly entertaining and thought-provoking ripple effect. It's more commonly referred to as playing the 'What-If' game, and it's one of my favorite pastimes.

So, I thought I’d give it a try here. In these pieces, I’m going to tackle an event or decision that greatly impacted the Oregon athletic landscape. I’ll then spend some time exploring what could’ve been had their been a different outcome.

I hope that these will become a regular staple and we can pronounce it ‘What-If Wednesdays’.

When I was thinking of this concept, the first thing that came to mind was what if Dennis Dixon’s knee didn’t buckle and with it Oregon’s chances for a 2007 national championship?

Let’s set the stage a bit before we dive in. As the 2007 season begins, Oregon is in the midst of its greatest run of success to date. Under head coach Mike Bellotti, the Ducks are frequent finishers near the top of the Pac-10 conference. Yet, nationally the Ducks are known mostly for off-the-wall uniforms and billboards on side of New York City skyscrapers.

In February of that year, the Ducks hire a visor-wearing offensive coordinator from the opposite corner of the country. With Chip Kelly’s innovative scheme, and slew of talented skill players led by Dixon, running back Jonathan Stewart and receivers Cameron Colvin and Jason Williams, the Ducks finally have that extra oomph.

They begin the season unranked, but behind a blowout win over Michigan in the Big House (thanks to some Statue of Liberty trickeration), the Ducks leap into the polls where they stay for the remainder of the season. Despite a narrow Sept. 29 loss to California and DeSean Jackson (and Colvin’s costly fumble through the back of the end zone), the Ducks continue to climb until wins over top 10 teams USC and Arizona State move them to No. 2 in the polls with three games remaining.

Better yet, the Ducks final three regular season opponents (Arizona, UCLA and Oregon State) own a combined 14-15 record. Suddenly, the one-loss Ducks look like national championships front-runners, and Dixon himself the Heisman favorite.

And it’s well deserved praise. Dixon’s deft execution of Kelly’s option offense has him putting up monster numbers. In wins over the Trojans and Sun Devils, he runs for a combined 175 yards and two touchdowns and passes for 353 and another score. For the season, he has completed 67.7 percent of his passes for 2,136 yards, 20 touchdowns and four interceptions.

There’s one problem. In the win over ASU, Dixon tears his ACL. This is not made public. It is kept a secret, and he tries to give it a go the next week against the Wildcats. But in the first quarter of the game, he tumbles to the turf after attempting to plant on a run play, and is sidelined for the rest of the season.

The Ducks go on to lose the game 34-24 and then look even more hapless against UCLA and Oregon State. Suddenly the national championship hopes are out the window, as are Dixon’s chances at the sport’s biggest individual prize.

So, here’s where I try to play the What-If game.

IF Dixon doesn’t tear his ACL against Arizona State, the Ducks are about to finish Pac-12 play against three very average teams. With Dixon healthy, the Ducks had averaged 42.7 points per game, and the upcoming opponents had scored, well, quite a bit less on average. That scoring average includes 50 plus point clobberings of Stanford, Washington State and Washington. Each of their remaining foes have lost to one of those teams to this point.

I think they win out. I really do. They had so much momentum. They were playing a style the sport had never seen played at this speed and with this precision, not to mention with players who perfectly fit that very style. This isn’t homerism, this is exactly what Vegas would’ve predicted as well. The Ducks were heavy favorites against the Wildcats, and would've been against the Bruins and Beavers as well.

Oregon earns a spot in the BCS Championship game where they’re set to face off against Ohio State. They do so, by nudging LSU for the second spot. As you might recall, the Tigers acted as the rare team to reach the championship game with two losses.

I think Oregon beats Ohio State (just as LSU did by two scores I might add). No one was ready for what Oregon was doing, including the Michigan team Oregon pasted 39-7 earlier in the 2007 season. That's the same one OSU narrowly beat (14-3) one week before earning the spot in the championship game.

As for Dixon, I’m not so sure he wins the Heisman. I say this because Tim Tebow was just begging to win that award. The nation’s love affair with the Florida star is well-documented, and while the Gators were just 9-3 that year, Tebow was the sport’s most recognizable name. His numbers were also pretty absurd, as he accounted for 55 of the team’s touchdowns that season and Dixon had done so for just 29 of his team’s scores prior to the injury. Still, might Dixon’s one-loss season have ultimately trumped Tebow’s three loss-season? There would’ve been a case to be made for sure.

The next what if might be the most frightening. What if Oregon had won the title? Might Bellotti not have passed the reins of the program off to Kelly one year later in 2009? Could he have felt compelled to soldier on? And if he hadn’t handed it off, would Kelly have stuck around long enough to take over? What if the result of Oregon winning a title in 2007 would’ve been missing out on all the success that followed? This is success that included two national title appearances, a Heisman Trophy winner and becoming the cool kid at the table.

So that’s the question I leave you with (assuming you’ve gotten this far), would you trade a national title in 2007 for the era of the Chipper that followed?