Senior Year Box Set

Seating for fans had almost doubled from last year, and there weren’t many empty seats. Our fans got on their feet and began chanting, “Our House!”

Cassidy had spent extra time with our defensive backs and linebackers to work on causing turnovers. Coach Hope was a firm believer that winning the turnover battle was key to winning games. On the fifth play of the opening drive, something good happened.

On the first four plays, Unity ran the ball and picked up three to four yards a down. Last week, they’d gained seven yards per carry. The difference was our linebackers were flying to the ball and making good tackles. Tim wasn’t happy, because he felt no offense should ever gain any yards.

On the fifth play, they ran play-action, faking the run, and threw a pass over the middle to their tight end. He took two strides, and I tackled him from behind and punched at his elbow. What Cassidy taught us was precisely like when you hit your funny bone. You get tremendous pain in your elbow, and your fingers tingle. When that happens, your last consideration is hanging onto a football.

As I cracked him in the elbow, the ball came free. Ed Pine rushed forward from his safety position and landed on the ball. Our defense ran off the field, the offense trotted on, and we huddled up.

“Option right,” Ty supplied.

“You heard the man. Option right on two,” I said.

We lined up with me under center and Bert and Ty behind me. We’d recovered the ball on their 39 yard line.

“Blue. Set. Hut, HUT!”

On the snap, I checked the inside and saw the linebackers expected the run, so I pulled the ball away from Bert. I ran down the line and found the defensive end was being blocked by Milo, so I kept the ball and cut upfield. Unity’s defense was known to be smart and fast, and they swarmed to the ball. When I crossed the line of scrimmage, they came for me with a vengeance. Just as I was about to be creamed, I tossed the ball to Ty.

When we played it back on Monday, Coach Mason about lost his shit when he saw I didn’t even look for Ty. We’d run some form of that play for the last two years. I had a good feel as to where he would be. It was a thing of beauty. As I was going down, Ty caught the ball and was off like a shot. I, on the other hand, was tackled by about half their defense. From the bottom of the pile, I could hear the noise of the crowd and knew something very good had happened.

We scored on every series in the first half. We also got to see Unity’s punter a lot. By halftime, we were up 35–0. I made sure that Wolf and Ty were featured for all the scouts who were in the stands. Tim and Yuri played like men possessed on defense.

The starters were pulled for the second half. Trent focused on running the ball and didn’t make any mistakes. We ended up winning 42–17.

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After the game, we had to hustle to get to the airport. We had our first official visit at Oklahoma. For this trip, the university was paying for everything, so our moms were joining us.

We caught a quick flight to St. Louis and then to Will Rogers Airport, which was about thirty miles from the University of Oklahoma campus. It was late when we finally got to our hotel. Tomorrow would be a big day. I was about to fall asleep when my phone rang. It was Tami.

“Hey,” I answered.

“I had to tell you first. Alan enrolled at Wesleyan.”

Well, crud.

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Chapter 10 – Seeing Red Saturday September 17

Morning came way too soon. This was our second trip, and Oklahoma wasn’t all that far from home. I hated to think about our upcoming trips to Southern Cal or Clemson.

The problem with official visits was you only had 48 hours to be on campus. If we flew in the morning after a game, we might be able to work it out to have a Saturday-to-Monday trip. I didn’t have to ask how my mom would feel about me missing school. For now, the plan was to rush to the airport after our game and get in late.

When we arrived last night, there had been a representative from the football program waiting for us at the airport. He made sure we got onto an airport shuttle bus that included two other families here for the weekend. Ours was the last group to show up.

When we finally made it to the hotel, they had packets for us with information on their football program and the tentative schedule for our visit. This was a big weekend, football-wise. I admit we picked this weekend because we wanted to see number 3 Ohio State play number 14 Oklahoma. This game would go a long way toward determining who would get a chance to play for the National Championship.

I remembered looking at the schedule with Tim and Wolf and marking this one on the calendar. We honestly thought we would be watching a game of unbeatens, but Oklahoma had stubbed its toe the first game of the season and lost to a good Houston team.