The camerawoman filmed me finishing packing for my trip while Jeff peppered me with questions. The plan was for Chuck to come over and get our bags before picking us up to go to USC. He was also tasked with catching Bandit and putting him in his pet carrier. I thought about leaving the little beast free but was afraid he would decide to hide from Chuck. Before we departed, I put him in Duke’s crate.
I put some clean game clothes into a duffle bag and took my new posse to grab a car to drive to the game. Now, I had to choose the Jeep or my Demon. I debated the merits of both. Did I want to look like an ordinary high school kid and drive the Jeep, or out myself and drive the Demon? I saw that there were child car seats in the back of the Jeep. That decided it. I would just have to take the Demon. I shook my head when I realized I’d been fooling myself. There had never been any debate. I would pick the Demon to drive ten times out of ten if I had a choice. That was unless it might get dirty or rained on.
The camerawoman looked confused when she saw that my car came with racing seat belts. When I’d gotten it, that was the way the driver’s seat was set up. Dodge had used it as a test car. When my dad had added the passenger and back seats, he’d followed their lead. I thought it brought the coolness factor up a notch to explain that my car was so powerful, you couldn’t ride in it with regular seat belts. The camerawoman wasn’t as impressed as I was.
When I fired the Demon up and let the beefy motor idle, I glanced back and saw Jeff smiling. Maybe it’s just a guy thing to enjoy a muscle car. I was tempted to show them what it could do, but I figured my mom would see this footage at some point and didn’t want to deal with the fallout. When we got to school, I didn’t hesitate to take up two parking spots. I didn’t trust the dumbass teenage drivers not to ding my car up before Fritz could get it safely back home.
As I got out, Cassidy came bounding up.
“Keys!” she demanded.
Against my better judgment, I gave them to her. I wasn’t impressed when she smoked the tires backing out. She gave me a sheepish wave to let me know everything was okay before flying out of sight. I had serious doubts about whether she would go straight home.
I changed into shorts and a t-shirt, and Jeff walked with me to the boosters’ building. Mrs. Sullivan greeted us and pointed us to a table. Mary Dole had volunteered to help cook tonight. She made an Asian fried chicken that had been marinated in ginger, fish oil, and soy sauce, and then breaded in seasoned flour. It might have been the best fried chicken I’d ever eaten. She’d nailed the crunchy exterior and left the chicken moist. I made a mental note to steal this recipe.
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Jeff had asked me what I thought the score would be. He’d laughed when I said it very well might go to overtime and that we might not score more than forty-two points combined. Deep into the first quarter, it looked like neither team stood a chance of scoring three touchdowns.
It became apparent that Mt. Vernon’s offense wasn’t going to do anything, so Coach Hope had ordered me to the sideline. Coach Mason had the offense gathered together.
“This game is going to be determined by turnovers, penalties, and special teams,” he told us.
I believed him. Our first two possessions, we’d gone three and out. I felt we had the superior kicker, and Derek Hofmann was winning us the field-position battle so far.
“We just need to put together a drive,” I said.
The problem we were having was that their defensive line was made up of small, quick guys. If our linemen could block them, they were toast. The problem was, their quickness allowed them to avoid our blocks. There were times when I had four defensive linemen in my face. Even Captain Chaos had problems when that happened.
“Make them stand their ground,” a voice from the back said.
Both Coach Mason and I turned around to see who had said it. It was my brother Phil. Coach Mason chuckled.
“Out of the mouths of babes … He’s right. We’ve been overthinking this. We run right at them,” Coach Mason said.
“Ty,” I warned, “you better make sure you’ve laced them up tight because you’re about to take a pounding.”
We looked up from our sidelines confab when we heard a groan from the crowd. I looked to see a yellow flag on the ground. Our defense had committed a face-mask penalty that added to a nice seven-yard reception by the other team. They were now on our 35 yard line. Six plays later, they scored to end the first quarter.
On the next possession, Ty pounded them inside. He was picking up two to four yards per carry as we began to move downfield. We’d just gotten past midfield when Coach Mason called a play-action pass. Mt. Vernon had slowly started to crowd the line, and Coach Mason had seen what I saw. If we could slip someone out and hit them with a quick pass, it might go a long way.
On the snap, Mt. Vernon’s defenders rushed forward to stop Ty. I pulled the ball from him and made my usual fake. The play was supposed to be to Wolf. It was designed for him, as our tight end, to momentarily help block the defensive end and then release to an open spot. When I turned around, I saw that Mt. Vernon had run a line stunt. That was where the defensive end crashed down towards the center, with their tackle looping behind him for a free run at the quarterback, aka me. Wolf had gotten caught in the mess and wisely decided to block.
I spotted Roc one-on-one on the outside, so I ripped a pass to him. I think he might have scored if I’d gotten the ball to him. When I attempted to stride, I stepped on one of Mt. Vernon’s linebackers. It surprised me, so I tried to hang onto the football. It squirted out of my hands, and the ball hit Johan in the earhole. I think the football gods had picked that moment to pay me back for ‘The Tip.’ Instead of the ball falling to the ground and us living to make another play, it bounced up, and their other linebacker caught it.
The little guy was quick. He darted down the line and turned up the field. I untangled myself from the kid I was standing on and took off after him. He gained about five yards before I tackled him. Mt. Vernon now had first and ten at the 50 yard line.
Something I loved about Coach Mason was that when something like that happened, he simply moved on. His philosophy was that it did no good to scream and yell about it during a game. Practice was a whole different matter. During a game, we all knew what we’d done wrong. He didn’t need to make matters worse.
That didn’t mean he didn’t have a sense of urgency. Every team has a set of plays they call ‘drive starters.’ You need something that will get you positive yardage and possibly a first down. We had ten or twelve plays that Coach Mason would choose from. They were all plays we were comfortable with. He said that if you didn’t practice something, then he couldn’t expect you to succeed when he asked you to do it. We all knew these plays and could run them in our sleep.
He told us that when we got the ball back, we were going to run my favorite run-pass option play. It started with Roc on the outside and Wolf at tight end. Roc would do a deep down-and-out, and Wolf would run underneath, not as far down the field. Coach Mason constantly reminded me that if Wolf was open short, it meant that Roc was covered. He knew my tendency to try to ‘create’ opportunities. His point was sometimes it was best just to take what they gave us.
The run portion of the play was me rolling out towards Roc and Wolf’s side of the field. Ty’s job was to run with me and block anyone who had a chance to disrupt the play. If I came under pressure, or my two receivers were covered, I would yell ‘Go!’ to let Ty know I was running.
Bo Harrington had given this play to Coach Mason; it was one Alabama ran with great success.