What If NC State Had Won? Here’s How The NCAA Would’ve Declared A College World Series Champion

In the early morning hours on Saturday, right around the time Texas was finishing off an 8-5 win over Mississippi State, the NCAA announced that North Carolina State was removed from the College World Series due to Covid-19 issues in the program. 

With the decision, Vanderbilt, which beat NC State Friday, moves on to the CWS finals, where it will take on the winner of the game between Mississippi State and Texas set for Saturday evening. 

But what if NC State had won its game against Vanderbilt Friday? Even though the Wolfpack were down to just 13 available players, that nearly happened. The Commodores won, 3-1, but were out-hit by NC State eight to six and the Pack had runners all over the bases late in the game, including in the ninth, when the winning run came to the plate with two outs. 

So had NC State gotten one or two more timely hits and pulled off that unlikely win, the understanding is that the winner of the Mississippi State and Texas bracket final would have been crowned the national champion, although messages to the NCAA to confirm the mechanics of that process have not been returned. 

In the scenario that played out last night, with Texas winning the game to force an additional bracket final game Saturday, that would have been a strange but not totally bizarre situation. It would have simply created a winner-take-all national title game out of thin air Saturday night. With both teams already likely approaching that game as an all-hands-on-deck experience from a pitching standpoint, it probably wouldn’t have changed the game much. 

The real chaos scenario, though, is what would have happened had Mississippi State beaten Texas, and with that having been a 5-5 game going to the ninth inning, the thought is not far-fetched. 

By the understanding we have of the process, with a win, Mississippi State would been crowned the national champion in the wee hours of Saturday morning after a nearly three-hour rain delay forced the final five outs to be recorded after 1 a.m. CT. 

There are still some interesting questions here that have yet to be answered, some of which will likely never be answered. 

What is the threshold that would have allowed NC State to play again on Saturday? Is there a scenario where the NCAA would have considered delaying things to give the Wolfpack a chance to get players back? Will the rest of the competing teams, and specifically Vanderbilt given that it played NC State, now be subject to full Covid testing the rest of the way, even for vaccinated players?

Also, did Mississippi State and Texas know of NC State’s removal during their game? Certainly neither head coach gave any indication of that in their respective postgame press conferences. The idea that the Bulldogs could have won the national title last night and only found out about it as the trophy was being carried onto the field seems crazy, but apparently, that nearly came to pass. 

This situation is already not ideal. Obviously it hurts NC State the most, but it also ends up being a slight disadvantage to MSU or UT going into next week, given that Vanderbilt caught a break in not having to use Jack Leiter, the assumed starting pitcher for a rematch against NC State Saturday. 

The scenario where a national champion would be determined Saturday night, three or four days early, between Mississippi State and Texas wouldn’t be ideal, but at least there would be one game played for all the marbles.

But if nothing else, we can take solace in not having had a team being handed a trophy after 1 a.m. at the end of a national championship game that the two teams may or may not have even known they were competing in.