Junior Year Box Set

I dropped back and saw Springfield do a line stunt. The Callahan brothers picked it up. I zeroed in on Wolf, which caused the safety on his side to drift over to help his defender out. I switched to Roc and then planted my feet in the center and tossed the ball to Ty. He had to go up for the ball because I had put a little too much on it. Ty pulled it in on the 8 yard line as he went down. I called time to stop the clock with nine seconds left.

Coach Hope motioned me over. There was an argument about whether we should kick the field goal now, or go for it. I figured we had time to get two plays in.

“Make them stop Wolf,” I said.

The defensive back who was covering him was only five-nine. Wolf had eight inches on him and seventy pounds. I would bet on Wolf every time. I ran back to the huddle.

“Wolf, it’s on you. As soon as you cross the goal line, I’ll have the ball on your outside shoulder.”

We lined up. Wolf exploded off the ball, and I had it out of my hands. As Wolf broke the goal line, he turned, and the football hit him in the facemask. Three seconds had come off the clock.

“Boomer, Boomer!” I called.

‘Boomer’ meant we’d do the same play, and everyone rushed to the line. I didn’t want to give Coach Hope a chance to send out the field-goal team.

This time Wolf was ready and caught the ball. Our fans erupted in celebration as we took a 28–24 lead into halftime.

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At halftime, Coach Diamond received a call from Coach Mason. Coach Mason had figured out how to get the video stream from the game. I was amazed that someone his age could figure out technology. Coach Diamond handed the phone to Coach Zoon and then shortly to Coach Hope who talked to Coach Mason the longest.

We broke up into offense and defense and listened to what we should expect in the second half. We were warned that there would probably be more blitzes coming. I prepared myself to get hit more; so far, I’d been lucky. We then trotted out to play the second half.

Springfield got the football first to start the second half. They hadn’t changed much, but they did use the play-action pass more. I ran over to Coach Zoon.

“Let me play safety to help with the play-action. I can at least warn them when it’s coming,” I suggested.

He gave me one of those looks you see old people give young people that says, ‘Leave me alone, kid.’

Springfield pounded the ball at us, drove right down the field, and scored. We were now down 31–28.

On the following kickoff, they finally made the mistake of kicking to Ty. He’d gotten better at returning kicks. I’d talked to him about following his blocks. Ty admitted that he got excited and just tried to use his speed. This time he followed Ed up the field behind the wedge. There was a big collision as the two teams came together. Ed darted through a hole, and I was afraid it would close before Ty could get through, but he broke an arm-tackle and was clear of the pileup. I jumped up and started to bounce up and down as Ty tucked in behind Ed rather than jetting past him. The kicker rushed up to stop Ty, but Ed got in the way and gave Ty enough room to come into the open. It was a near thing, but Springfield wasn’t able to catch him. We were now up 35–31.

On the next drive, Springfield started on their 20 yard line.

“Dawson,” Coach Zoon called out.

I didn’t wait for him to tell me what he wanted but sprinted out to play free safety. I peeked over and saw Coach Hope’s shoulders shaking as he tried not to laugh at his disgusted defensive coordinator. With me at free safety, I could see the whole field. I saw how their linemen changed their stance and how engaged their receivers seemed when it was a pass play. I was able to warn my teammates when it was a run or pass before the snap. Springfield did manage to get a first down, but with my help, they had to punt.

We started our drive. Springfield did begin to blitz, and I was in football heaven. I dropped into the zone and exposed them every time they came after me. I simply saw the field better and was able to decipher the puzzle. Working at all the camps and Elite 11 had exposed me to a lot of excellent coaching. This time last year, I would have become rattled and gone into chaos mode. Now I was able to do controlled chaos.

By the end of the third quarter, we had pushed the score to 49–31. That was when we saw Springfield give up. They had given it a tremendous shot. I felt they were by far the best team we had played to this point, even if the score didn’t show it. I played one more series on offense and hit a pretty teardrop bomb to Roc, extending our lead to 56–31. After that, I was benched to prevent injury and to give our backups a chance to play against a quality opponent.

When the game ended, I pointed to the sky to acknowledge my best friend Jeff.

“That one was for you, Buddy.”

◊◊◊

I’d just come out of the shower when Alan found me.

“Coach Hope says you have to talk to the press.”

“It’s Homecoming,” I complained.

“Tell it to the boss.”