Coalition military leaders examine these and other "what-ifs" time and again in "war games" and computer exercises, using "red teams" playing the role of enemy.

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What actually happened, fortunately, was kinder than the what-ifs.

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"I'm not going to speculate about what-ifs, " he said.

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Though an epilogue examines tactical what-ifs, no effort is made to say what it all meant, and the whole story reads rather like an inside view of a tight World Series baseball championship.

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He also goes into how the have-nots could gain superior voting power in he BCS under a return to this system, but that includes a lot of what-ifs and is beyond the scope of what I want to cover here.

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There are, of course, many what-ifs to take into consideration that can never be proven, but by reversing the ill-gotten win that Seattle notched (the referees admitted to the screw-up and the labor dispute was settled before any other games were played) the Green Bay Packers would currently have 12 wins and automatically have a lock on the second seed with the potential to still grab the first seed.

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