Wake Forest fans or college football fans may not remember Doc Blanchard, the 1945 Heisman Trophy winner and first junior to win the award. And that's no big deal, I barely remember who won the Heisman this year and the year before (okay, I'm lying, we played Robert Griffin III and Andrew Luck -- and Wake actually has wins against both supremely talented quarterbacks).
But what is also interesting about Blanchard is that his father played for the Demon Deacons in the 1920s. Doc enrolled at UNC before joining the military, where the West Point team went 27-0-1 when he was there.
So if we're playing the "what if?" game, let's pretend Blanchard went to Wake instead of UNC and never enlisted in the Army.
Well we'd have a bona fide Wake Forest Heisman Trophy Winner on our hands.
Click through for more on this scenario...
Blanchard "Mr. Inside" won his Heisman in 1945, which just so happened to be one of the best years in Wake Forest football history. A year after going 8-1 in the Southern Conference, Peahead Walker's Deacs team finished the season ranked 19th and won the Gator Bowl over South Carolina.
Wake even played Blanchard's Army squad in its most lopsided loss of the season, a 54-0 drubbing.
The running game may not have been as efficient at Wake Forest as it was in the well-oiled inside/outside West Point machine, but Doc's running style was common at the time, and his superior athletic prowess (which earned him a first-round draft selection of the Pittsburgh Steelers) would have served him well on any team.
Coupled with the one of the best stretches in Deacs' football history (we can give that edge to the ACC Championship team that went to three bowls in three years), Blanchard would have thrived under the coaching of Peahead Walker and would have given the Deacs the push to make for a truly special 1945 season, not to mention the prospects of an undefeated 1944 campaign (I can't see Duke standing a chance with Doc running up the middle).
With Blanchard leading the way, Wake most assuredly would have been able to topple Tennessee in the first game of the season, as the Deacs fell 7-6 in Knoxville. The Army game is up in the air, but with the Black Knights' biggest weapon out of their hands and in the possession of their opponents, the tides could be turned. The Deacs would have a shot at revenge against Duke, another game they lost, 26-19, and the first battle against the Gamecocks most certainly wouldn't have ended in a tie.
Blanchard was a truly special runner in an era where running backs ruled college football, and to think, had he gone just up the road -- to his father's alma mater -- there was a chance he could have altered the history of Wake Forest football forever.
This post was sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 13. Check out the video for the game below.