Page 22 of Campus Heat

The opening kickoff was clean, and the defense swarmed. On the third down, Malik actually contained the edge instead of chasing inside.

“Did you see that?” one of the spectators said.

Three and out. For a brief moment, I felt something steady settle in my chest, and I thought that maybe this time could be different.

Our first drive crossed midfield. We had short passes and quick outs. It was a draw play that finally looked like it belonged in football, instead of a diagram from another sport. We didn’t score because we stalled in the red zone, but we got points and that was everything.

“3-0!” Lucas cheered as the score hit the board.

It was small and fragile, but it was ours. After everything we had been through, we deserved it. And Coach… He was electric as he stood on the sideline.

“That’s pace!” he shouted. “That’s tempo!”

We didn’t correct his terminology, because at that point it didn’t matter. We were finally competing. But then Harris called a new package.

“Motion stack!” he yelled. “We overload one side, then reverse pivot.”

My stomach dropped. What he wanted was a modified version of a basketball high-low set. It would have two receivers stacked tight, one on short motion. Dylan would have to flare wide like a wing and wait for a kick-out pass.

“What does he want?” Malik said.

“The idea is to pull the defense laterally. Fake the screen, then throw back across the field to the tight end slipping behind coverage.”

In theory, it was a misdirection. In reality, we weren’t fluid enough.

There was a snap. The slot receiver mis-timed the motion and nearly collided with Lucas. The fake screen developed too slowly, and the defensive back didn’t bite. I pump-faked once. The pocket collapsed.

“Shit!” I tried to reset my feet, but I hit the tight end crossing late.

A defensive end got a hand up. The ball fluttered, and got intercepted before returning to the ten. By that time the home crowd woke up, and two plays later they got a touchdown. 7-3. The shift in our motivation was instant, but we decided to try it again in the second quarter.

“Trust it,” Harris said.

That time, Dylan dropped the fake screen. The ball bounced awkwardly off his hands and into open grass. A linebacker scooped it up and ran untouched. 14-3.

I could feel it slipping. Not our effort, but our confidence in the structure. We were still playing hard, but we were playing unsure. And by half-time it was 21-6.

“It wasn’t an annihilation,” Lucas mumbled.

It was so much worse. It was actually competitive enough to believe, but far enough behind to feel it fading.

In the third quarter, we decided to abandon Harris’s experimental package.

“We're going back to the basics,” I said to the team.

It helped, but only for a while. We had a sustained drive, and a touchdown pass on a simple slant-flat concept that worked because it was clean and practiced.

“21-13!” It was more of a curse than an announcement from my side.

Our sideline had life, but then special teams broke down. We missed a tackle on a punt return. There was one cut, then they had an open field. 28-13.

After that, the margin widened quietly. We had a missed block here, and a dropped pass there. A coverage bust that shouldn’t have happened, but did because someone hesitated for half a second.

“Final score 35-13,” I sighed.

It wasn’t as humiliating as our last attempt but it was a definitive loss.

After the game, the tension in the locker room was as heavy as our beat-up bus. There was no shouting, and no jokes. The guys were defeated, and none of us were in the mood to put up an act.