Junior Year Box Set

Coach Mason had had Alan load all of Unity’s games into our football software. One of the features it had was it would report on which plays worked best and worst against an opponent’s defense. What it told us was that we should run quick-hitting plays up the middle. This didn’t give them a chance to get set afterward.

“Shift! Shift!” I called out.

I stepped up under the center, while Wolf sprinted in and became a fullback, with Ty stacked behind him in the ‘I’ formation. Ed shifted out to take Wolf’s spot at wide receiver. Unity looked confused because we rarely had me under center.

“Blue. Set. Hut, HUT!”

I handed the ball off to Ty, and he picked up five yards. Unity never expected that we would play power football. Our strength was with me passing the ball, and that was what they game-planned for. I think they expected us to run this play a couple of times and then spring the play-action pass on them. Instead, play after play, Ty picked up three to five yards.

I had a little smile as I imagined how happy Coach Hope was at seeing his dream offense in action. This was like old-school football where you ate up the clock and wore down the opponent’s defense. I could see my teammates wanted to go for more.

“Hey, until they stop us, we’re going to run it down their throats. Focus on holding your blocks, and Wolf, I want to see you knock someone on their butt. Dive right on two. Break!”

I could see a grim determination from my teammates. They followed my lead, and Wolf ran over the middle linebacker, giving Ty enough room to pick up eight yards. On the next play, he gained eleven, and the one after that, ten. Two plays later, he punched it in from the 3 to give us the lead, 7–0.

Ty already had more yards against Unity than any other back had made this year, with 70. He’d been the only one to touch the ball. I joined him on the sideline to see how he was doing.

“You think you can keep this up?” I asked.

Ty was sweating and out of breath; it took a moment for him to respond.

“I might need a breather, but I love this. Wolf’s a beast.”

I checked on Wolf, and he was doing better than Ty, but neither of them was used to power football. I found Coach Diamond.

“Hey, Ty and Wolf are getting worn out,” I said.

“We know. I’m pulling Ty from special teams and will keep an eye on the guys. I’ll talk to them and have them take themselves out of the game if they get overtired,” he said.

“Like that’ll ever happen.”

“If you think they need to come out, send them to the sideline,” Coach Diamond told me.

Unity had picked up a few first downs but ended up having to punt. Ed stood back as their punter boomed a high, deep ball. Ed signaled fair catch, caught the ball cleanly and was promptly leveled by a Unity defender. Flags flew from all directions, and Ed just lay there. The training staff sprinted onto the field.

I watched as the guy who had hit Ed slunk off to the sidelines and then got high fives from his teammates. I mentally filed his number away. If I caught him in the field of play, there would be payback.

After the fifteen-yard penalty was assessed, we began our drive on the 38 yard line. We continued to drive the ball down their collective throat. Unity finally stopped us inside their 20 yard line, and we kicked a field goal to go up 10–0.

I finally got to watch my Russian friend Yuri on defense. He seemed to have a nose for the ball, and I could tell he was reading their offensive plays better. I couldn’t wait until Tim recovered and the two of them were let loose on defense. They held Unity to a three-and-out.

I’d found Coach Stevens and said that I was supposed to take Ed’s place for punt returns. Of course, I didn’t tell him that I was the one that told me that. I just ran out with the punt return team as though I belonged. I don’t think the other coaches realized it was me until the punt was off.

Unity’s punter had a strong leg, and the ball flew deeper than I’d anticipated. I had to turn and run to the right to catch it. As it happens, that worked in my favor because I was already running when I caught the ball. I turned upfield and spotted the player who’d put the illegal hit on Ed. I also spotted Yuri as he ran downfield to help block, so I ran right at the Unity player and then cut hard right. He turned to chase me, and Yuri blasted him so hard the kid was knocked out of one of his shoes.

Unity now had a problem: they had a six-four, 215-pound guy who was the fastest man on our team in the open field. Ty had more moves than I ever dreamed of having, but if you let me run north and south, I picked up big chunks of real estate in a hurry. Unity might try to swarm me all day, but they had to catch me first. This was one of those times when the kicker outkicked his coverage and had given me a chance to build a full head of steam. Yuri’s block was all I needed to run past Unity’s defenders. Their kicker, and last line of defense, had no chance. I just handed the ball to the back judge and jogged over to Yuri.