“BLUE!”
There was a large gap on their side of the field where their safety and cornerbacks hadn’t gotten into position yet. I took a two-step drop and then tucked the ball. The play was designed to go up the middle, but I took off around the right end. I outran their defensive end and outside linebacker. Their cornerback on the open side of the field had blazing speed and caught me after I crossed the 50 yard line. He was breathing hard, and I decided to take advantage.
The next play was a hook to Wolf intended to keep the chains moving. We’d practiced the no-huddle for the past two weeks, but hadn’t used it in a game.
“ON THE BALL ... ON THE BALL ...” I yelled.
I then changed the play.
“CHECK ... CHECK ... 52 ... 52 ...”
I flipped the formation so that Bill was lined up with the corner that had chased me down. I called a double move that would freeze the corner for a moment and give Bill the chance to run by him.
“Blue. Set. Hut, HUT!”
On the snap, the backside defensive end made a move on our left tackle. A couple of weeks ago, he would have had a free run at me. Luke paid attention, stepped up, and slowed him down enough so the left tackle could re-engage. Confident I wouldn’t be blindsided, I pump-faked when Bill made his cut. The corner bit on the fake and closed on Bill. Bill planted his foot to change direction and sprinted up the sideline. I lofted the ball 30 yards in the air, and Bill caught it in stride. Their corner simply didn’t have enough to catch Bill.
I could feel from the very beginning that I was in the zone. Unfortunately, so was Mark. On their first series, one of our defensive backs slipped on an easy tackle and they scored. Less than three minutes into the game, we were tied 7–7.
On the next series, we switched to our read-option running game. Our goal was to get Luke and me into their secondary and pound on their small defensive backs. Coach Engels’ plan was to work them as you would a fighter: enough body blows and it would become easier to knock them out in the later rounds. We made a point to fight for every yard and to put a hit on anything in the way. By the sixth play of the drive, their defensive backs were losing form in their tackling, and trying to take our legs out instead of meeting us head-on.
That was when I let Wolf loose. I ran three short pass plays to him and let his six-five, 240-pound body work on them. On the third pass, he had two of them hanging on him as he powered into the end zone. Mark led Eastside back to another quick score when Magic went for an interception and missed. Kevin was taking it better than I expected. The first touchdown someone slipped, and the second was an aggressive play.
“We’ll stop them. You just keep scoring,” Kevin said as he came off the field and walked up to me.
The confidence he displayed made me quit worrying. By halftime, Kevin was right. We led 35–21. I threw five touchdown passes and one interception. They ran back the interception, so Kevin did stop their offense. At halftime, I apologized to him.
“Sorry, man, I know you can’t stop them if you aren’t on the field.”
He whacked the back of my helmet.
“You dork. What were you thinking?”
“I thought I could get it to Ed. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”
“I tell you what,” Kevin glared at me. “Since I like you, I’ll let that one go, but I want a shutout in the second half. Don’t mess that up for me.”
“No, sir. I’ll at least tackle them if I throw another one, so you can take care of it.”
He winked at me because several of our teammates listened to our conversation.
“Okay, we have a deal then. If the offense messes up, the defense’ll bail them out.”
We shook on it.
Kevin’s dreams of a shutout were dashed when Eastside marched right down the field and scored at the start of the second half. Mark looked much better, and it was obvious that they had made some good halftime adjustments. We now led 35–28. The crowd was vocal on both sides. If I’d watched the game, I would’ve been entertained with all the scoring.
When we came out for our first series, we ran a quick slant. They’d made a change on defense: they moved one of their outside linebackers to cover Wolf one-on-one. This was what we’d been waiting for.
“Okay, they made the change on Wolf,” I said when we got into the huddle.
We knew what to do. We would make the linebacker run across the formation and then have Wolf run him out of the center of the field. This gave us an advantage to run the ball. They would slip up a defensive back for run support, but they were already gun-shy from the pounding we’d put on them earlier.
“Blue. Set,” I called, as Wolf started in motion, and the linebacker followed him. Once they cleared the center I said, “Hut, HUT!”
I ran the ball around the left tackle, where Wolf had started. Their strong safety sprinted up to help with run support, and I was at full speed when I exploded into him. The now familiar crack of pads had our fans on their feet. He went straight to the ground as I stepped over him. Their corner closed quickly, and I waited for him to commit. When I turned, Luke was in the perfect trailing position. I pitched the ball as the cornerback tackled me. Luke took the pitch in stride and outran the rest of their team.
That play broke their spirit. At the start of the fourth quarter, we were up 49–28. Coach Lambert took most of us out at that point to give the backups some playoff experience. We had a short week with our next game on Saturday. Mark was able to put one more score up to make the final 49–35.
The press conference after the game focused on the All-Conference selections and the fact that I didn’t even receive an honorable mention. They tried to get me to make a negative comment about the All-Conference selections. I finally had had enough.
“Look, guys, I didn’t start the season at quarterback. I know you can say that Mark didn’t either, but he played one more game than I did. He also made a huge impact on how well their offense ran. He fit their system and ran it extremely well. I’m not going to second-guess his selection. If you look at his stats, he had a great year.”
With that, I got up and walked out.
Mark and his coach were up next. He wasn’t as gracious. He was asked the same question.
“I’m a much better quarterback than David Dawson. I complete a high percentage of my passes and have to work within the confines of our offense.”
That got his coach to give him a dirty look. It was always a bad idea to throw your coach under the bus in public.
“David is just a raw talent. He has a gunslinger mentality that’s prone to mistakes. I’m much more controlled in my approach. I won’t be the one to cause our team to lose. Mark my words, David Dawson will be the reason they won’t win State.”
My first reaction was to punch him, but then I remembered that he was done and we had a game Saturday. He looked over with a smirk on his face, which disappeared when I winked at him. I might end up losing a game, but we both knew who should have been All-Conference.
AFTER THE GAME AND press conference, Cindy was waiting for me. I was sure this was another part of her campaign to be seen with me. She hoped to avoid having the male population hit on her, but I didn’t see where that would stop them because too many people knew that she and I were just friends. For my part, I was more than willing to have Cindy on my arm.
She came up quickly and gave me a very nice kiss. When we parted, her eyes darted towards a guy I assumed had hit on her. He was the swim team captain. I got to know him from working at the pool for my dad over the years. He was always nice to me, and I never heard him being anything but a gentleman.
I guided her right up to him.
“Hey, I didn’t know the swim team followed football,” I said.