I had to hurry back to the locker room because it was almost time for us to warm up. We were going to have a big crowd tonight. It seemed the town was treating this like a real game.
◊◊◊
For the freshmen and sophomores, this was a big game. They would get some playing time at the varsity level. As I expected, they were nervous, so I sent Wolf in to get them together, and he told them stupid jokes until they calmed down. I, on the other hand, wasn’t nervous at all, which surprised me. Usually, I’d have been puking by now, but somehow this felt more like practice to me. It was hard to get excited about hitting your fellow teammates. There was one exception, though: Mike. I planned on putting him down hard and often tonight.
I had Tim and Jim scheduled to lead the team out for warm-ups. They had taken the demotion from team captains hard. This was my way to let them know I still supported them, even if I felt their hazing of the new linemen was childish. I agreed with Coach Hope that it needed to be nipped in the bud, though.
The blowback had been worse for Jim. He was in his senior year, and recruiters were looking at him hard. Jim was currently ranked the fourth-best lineman in the Midwest after he’d gone to several lineman camps over the summer. I’d been asked about his character more than once by recruiters. Getting reprimanded for hazing and removed as a team captain did not make the sort of impression on colleges that you’d want. The big-time programs were under a lot of pressure to get it right, and a troublemaker was absolutely not the kind of guy they wanted in their locker room.
I was doing my usual routine of listening to hard rock music before the game when my phone chirped. I had a text from Brandon, my new personal assistant/recruiting coordinator.
‘Call Me!’
Other times I would have ignored him this close to taking the field, but something told me I needed to answer him.
“Sorry to ask you to call me right before a game,” Brandon said.
He had played football and knew I didn’t want a disruption in my pregame rituals. Every player had a way to get ready for a game. Some were very particular in what they did.
“I figured it had to be important or you wouldn’t have sent the text,” I said to ease his mind.
“I should have anticipated this, but honestly didn’t think we would get so many requests this early.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Recruiters want to schedule you for campus visits and also in-home visits. Bo Harrington said you needed help to schedule everything. He suggested that you limit what you do this year to only the schools you’re serious about. He would like to sit down with you and your family after the game.”
Bo had taken the quarterback-coaching position for the Crimson Tide, and could no longer coach me one-on-one. I’d put out a call to Bud Mason, the former Oakland Raiders quarterback coach and offensive coordinator who’d coached me at Elite Camp in Houston, to replace Bo as my off-season coach. Coach Mason told me he was happy in retirement, but would consider it. He had agreed to review my game films and give his observations each week.
“I can’t do anything this weekend. My parents are in Las Vegas, and we’re going to the Northwestern-Stanford game tomorrow. My mom would like to meet the coaches before I make a decision. She’s already met the Northwestern coaching staff, so we’re okay with them. I’d hoped she could meet the Stanford staff, but we can probably do that when I’m in LA shooting the movie after the season.”
Mom and Dad were familiar with Stanford since she had gone to their cancer center. They hadn’t met the coaching staff, though. Mom had said she wanted to spend some time in LA while I did my new movie, and I wanted them there for the release of Star Academy.
“Sounds like a plan. I understand that some of the other guys will be meeting with schools tonight and won’t be able to go to your party,” Brandon said.
Ah ha! My sister-in-law and the cheerleaders planned to throw a party at my place while my parents were gone. I hoped Precious had done some major damage this morning.
“Let me ask you a question: could this have waited until after the game?” I asked.
“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I’ll try not to bother you before a game again.”
I hung up, and it was time to get ready for the game. Tim and Jim led us out, and we stretched and got the blood pumping. When it was time to throw, I took a moment to take in the atmosphere. The marching band was entertaining the fans by the hospitality tent. It looked like we would have at least as many people for our scrimmage as we would for a game. Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised, because our little town was football-crazy.
Off to the west, storm clouds were pushing in. I just hoped we could get the game in before it rained. The weather report predicted overnight showers, some heavy.
We returned to the locker room to hear Alan give us his pearls of wisdom. To his credit, he kept it short. Alan might be a spaz at times, but he could focus. He was also almost as competitive as Tami and me. Alan was the thinker of the group. When we played video games, he would spend hours figuring out all the little hidden places so he could ambush us. If Alan brought that focus to coaching, he would be a great asset.
Alan sent me out alone for the coin flip. Mike, Ty, Jake, and Ed met me at midfield. It was weird to see them across from me.
“You’re going down, Dawson!” Mike challenged me.
I looked at Ty, and he just shook his head. Ty knew it wasn’t a good idea to get me riled up. If any of the others had said it, I would have just laughed, but Mike wasn’t on my favorite-person list. The hairs on the back of my neck raised up as I got mad. I didn’t say a word as the ref did the coin toss. They won and decided to defer to the second half. I took the ball. Usually, you would shake hands, but I just turned my back to them and walked to our sideline to get ready. I think Mike had done me a favor because I leaned over behind the bench and threw up. Now I was ready! All I needed was to hit somebody, and I’d be good.
On the kickoff, the Lincoln cowbells were ringing to announce the start of the game. Their kicker put the ball out of bounds, which gave us the football on the 35 yard line. Alan gave me the first play before I went out.
“Z98 Play Action W,” he told me.
I had expected we would run the option since that’s what we usually ran to get the jitters out of everyone. Alan had instead called a play-action pass to Wolf. With our new formation, I would line up under center with a fullback behind me. Two tailbacks would be lined up behind and slightly outside of the tackles on each side. We would then have one receiver wide to each side. Alan was trying to catch them off guard as they tried to stop the expected run. I liked how he thought. I just hoped I didn’t overthrow the ball.
“Blue! Set. Hut, Hut!”
I faked the handoff to the fullback and started down the line as if I were running the option. I looked for Wolf and saw that Coach Zoon had cheated. Instead of our standard defense, he had a corner and safety on Wolf as a double team, and underneath help from a linebacker. The play was supposed to be quick because on a run, my read was the defensive end. I was supposed to throw before the defensive end had a chance to get into my face. With Wolf covered, my only option was to run the ball.
That was when I peeked over to the back side and saw Roc streaking down the field with the much smaller Ed chasing him. Something that Bo had hammered into me was footwork. Throwing the ball started with your base. Last year I would have used my arm strength and just thrown the ball to Roc. If I followed Bo’s advice, my accuracy went way up. The defensive end would get a free shot, but I took the time to throw the football correctly. The upside of playing your own team was they were conditioned to not try and hurt me. When he saw he wasn’t going to stop me, he just gave me a shove instead of planting me into the turf.