The Monster That Changed Overnight
After the camp schedule wrapped up, Horton waved off the college players who were calling him over.
"I promised to help out one of the kids, so I'll head back a little later."
"Take it easy, alright? You've got to run again tomorrow anyway."
This was after the testing had ended but before the coaching sessions began. Nick Saban had gathered the college players and made them a request.
Originally, they were done once today's schedule was complete. But he asked them to stay another day to work with the kids, and it wasn't just anyone asking — it was Nick Saban himself, so everyone accepted. Thanks to that, the college players, who'd gotten to spend a night at a luxury hotel, were now enjoying a rare moment of leisure.
"Sorry. Go on ahead. I'll text you later."
"Fine. Just don't be late."
He left behind the stares of players who seemed to ask why on earth he'd bother babysitting high schoolers, and Horton stayed where he was. Before long, Jaehyuk came walking over.
"Wait long?"
"Nah, I'm good."
"Weren't they asking you to head back with them? You sure it's okay to stay?"
"Yeah. I promised you first, remember?"
At Horton's words, Jaehyuk nodded.
"You've got decent character, don't you?"
"I'm interested in you personally, that's all. We only did a quick drill together and I evaluated you earlier, but... I wanted to see more."
Horton started loosening up lightly. He simply couldn't understand it. A second-year in high school — and Jaehyuk was already being tapped as a starter for Alabama.
And not just any school. Alabama. A school that picky would never offer conditions like that without a reason. Horton wanted to see it for himself.
"Mind helping me out?"
"Huh? Coach Saban."
Just then, Nick Saban approached with a ball in hand. Had he not gone back after the coaching wrapped up? Horton was briefly flustered, but soon nodded in welcome.
"I'd appreciate that."
"Oh, sir. Thank you!"
Jaehyuk chimed in beside him, and before long the two were ready and faced off under one-on-one rules. Saban would throw the passes. Jaehyuk had the first possession.
Alright, let's see what you've got.
Horton had no intention of going easy. If this kid was going to be a starter at Alabama, then Horton owed him his absolute best.
Tap!
Jaehyuk moved. He was undeniably fast — like his reaction speed ran a frame or two ahead of everyone else's. Horton had played in college games, if only a handful, and compared to the opponents he'd faced there, the difference was barely perceptible.
For a high schooler...
It was impressive. But was it starter-at-Alabama level? That part felt murky.
Tap. A sharp change of direction from Jaehyuk — but Horton was able to keep up. The high schoolers who got hyped as flying geniuses were, to a college player like him, frankly not in the same conversation.
Thwip!
He swatted away the first pass with ease.
"Hm."
Jaehyuk let out a dissatisfied grunt, and watching him, Horton spoke up. "How's that? Feel the gap yet?"
"My turn on defense this time, isn't it?"
Jaehyuk brushed it off like it was nothing, and Horton nodded. Saban soon readied another throw, and Horton — for the sake of his pride as a wide receiver — was determined to catch every single ball.
"Hut!"
With a short shout, Horton took off. He jabbed left and right, sold the fake with his steps, and turned—
"!!"
But at some point Jaehyuk had already read him and stuck to his hip. Horton tried to shove him off, but Jaehyuk slipped past his hands like he'd planned it all along.
Whoosh.
The ball sailed into empty air. Jaehyuk's relentless marking had denied Horton the catch entirely.
"...That was actually fun."
He meant it. In the first possession he'd written the kid off as just a talented high schooler, but to be paid back immediately like this — clearly, this one was the real deal.
"Shouldn't you have been playing cornerback instead of running back?"
"Put me anywhere except the line, and I'll manage."
Watching Jaehyuk say it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, without a flicker of expression, Horton laughed. It had been days since anything had given him a reason to, and here came his first real laugh in ages.
They ran ten one-on-ones in total. And astonishingly, the score came out 5–5.
"That stings my pride a little."
Horton laid his feelings bare. Jaehyuk had managed to catch two passes — but more than that, he'd broken up a full three.
Against Horton, an active D1 college player. And one-on-ones were a format that overwhelmingly favored the wide receiver. With Jaehyuk being a running back, calling it a draw was a result that defied belief.
"Horton."
"Hm?"
"Can I be straight with you?"
Horton tilted his head at that. What was he about to say?
"Go ahead."
"Your timing is way too easy to read."
"What?"
Easy to read? At a critique he never saw coming, Horton could only stand there, stunned.
"I'm guessing no one's ever told you properly, but you know your steps, right? Every time you plant, there's one unnecessary movement. One wasted step."
"Steps are essential. There's no such thing as an unnecessary step."
"Right. For most players, sure. But just this once, trust me and cut one out. You're thinking so hard about your footwork that it's actually making you stiff."
Horton bristled a little. And no wonder — the kid giving him pointers was nothing but a high schooler. Some punk who might end up his underclassman at Alabama someday, presuming to coach him. It rubbed him the wrong way.
But then—
"Coach, what do you think?"
Jaehyuk abruptly turned to Nick Saban. And naturally, Horton had no choice but to be interested too.
"Shall we try it again?"
At Saban's word, the two ran one more round each on offense and defense. And astonishingly—
"How did I..."
Jaehyuk won both. Both of them.
Horton's speed hadn't changed. Jaehyuk's wasn't anything special either — ordinary elite high school recruit pace, nothing Horton couldn't handle. And yet he failed to break up the pass, and failed to catch it too.
"I'm telling you, you're getting read. It's the steps and the body language."
By now, Horton was starting to wonder if Jaehyuk had been right all along. Then Saban, who'd been watching, added his own note.
"Cut the last step. Again."
"...Yes, sir."
Following Saban's instruction, Horton consciously tried to drop the final step. But a habit built into a man's body doesn't break that easily.
"Hmm, may I practice on my own for a bit?"
"Take your time."
Horton stepped through his routes alone. He had a routine he'd run a thousand times, so suddenly removing the last step wasn't something he could just flip on command. But after five or six reps, he managed — bit by bit — to consciously cut it.
"Ready. Thank you for waiting."
He reset his stance and squared off against Jaehyuk again.
Cut the last step.
Tap!
The step felt strange somehow. Shorter, maybe. A flicker of doubt — would this even fool anyone?
But—
Thwoop!!
The ball buried itself dead center in his frame. For an instant, it felt like current surged through Horton's whole body.
Th-this is...
He swallowed hard, had Saban throw him another ball, and made the request. "One more, please!"
"Go ahead."
Come to think of it, he'd completely forgotten Jaehyuk was covering him. His entire world had narrowed to himself and the ball.
Thwoop!
And once again, the ball hit him dead center in the chest.
Jaehyuk frowned. "Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. I can't stop this at all."
"..."
Was this actually... working?
But deep down, Horton knew the answer better than anyone. This feeling. He used to feel it all the time back in high school — a sensation that had vanished at some point, without warning. Yes, this was it. The feeling of being perfectly connected to his quarterback. The pure, unmistakable joy of a ball arriving exactly where it should.
"How in the world did you see that!"
A voice exploded out of nowhere. And its owner was none other than Nick Saban — who at some point had grabbed Jaehyuk by the shoulders and was shaking him.
"How did you spot it instantly, just by going up against him? Not a single coach or coordinator picked up on it!"
"I felt it going against him directly. Let go of me, sir."
Jaehyuk shook off Saban's hands and smoothed out his rumpled clothes. "And there's something else I just figured out."
"What?"
Saban and Horton both reacted with surprise. Then both of them leaned in, ears perked.
"Hey, Horton. You really can't be thinking about your opponent."
It came out of nowhere, but Horton — who had come to trust him by now — rushed over. "Wh-what do you mean?"
"Just now, you weren't paying any attention to me at all, were you?"
"Huh? No, I wasn't."
"That's part of it too. Watching you now, you spend way too much energy reading your defender. If you just trusted your own athleticism and your quarterback and locked in on the ball alone, you'd produce a lot more."
"Oh..."
As it happened, Horton hadn't spared a single thought for Jaehyuk just now — all his focus had been on his steps and the ball. And the advice hit, point for point, exactly what he'd just felt for himself. Too real to dismiss as nonsense.
"Could you go against me a little longer?"
The energy in his voice had transformed completely. Horton asked with a dead-serious face, and Jaehyuk answered with a faint grin.
"Come at me."
The next morning.
The players had gathered earlier than usual, stretching out and waiting for Nick Saban. "Whew." A nervous exhale. Everyone glanced around, reading the room, sizing each other up.
Meanwhile, Jaehyuk — who'd spent all of yesterday getting run ragged by Horton — was working the stiffness out of his body.
"Hey. Hey, Jaehyuk."
"Hm?"
"Did you hear?"
"Hear what?"
"About why we're meeting this early today."
"No."
He'd only been told to show up early — nothing else. But judging by the atmosphere, everyone except him seemed to have heard something.
"What is it?"
"Today's test is effectively the last one. They're cutting from 33 down to the final 22, and tomorrow's the final game."
"Right."
"The last test leaked."
So that's why everyone's wound so tight. But what could this last test possibly be? These were the top high school recruits in the country, a gathering of players whose pride reached for the sky — and every one of them had already survived two full days of cuts. Jaehyuk had never seen players like these this tense.
"So what's the test?"
"A game against the college players."
"A game? Against those guys from yesterday?"
Yeah. That was absolutely... something to be nervous about.
And just as he and Hopkins were talking, Nick Saban and the staff filed in — with the college players from yesterday reappearing right behind them.
"Judging by the mood, I take it most of you already know."
At Saban's words, silence flooded the field from every direction. Just stiff eyes, fixed on the college players standing behind him.
"Today's test is an 11-on-7 game. You'll have four extra men on your side, so you'd better not lose. And the college players, unlike you, will have to play three full games."
At Saban's words, faces everywhere settled into the look of people who'd known the reckoning was coming.
Before long, a coordinator stepped forward and began calling names.
"We're splitting into teams now. Starting with Group A."
The teams came together fast — clearly pre-planned the day before, split with careful attention to balance.
"Whew, man. That's a relief."
Hopkins made a show of celebrating, glancing at Jaehyuk beside him. By sheer luck, the two of them had landed in the same Group C. Meanwhile, Dakorien Moore had drawn Group A, and Mateo Rodriguez Group B.
"So today, one of the three aces goes home."
Dakorien, Mateo, Jaehyuk — three different groups, and with one group guaranteed to be eliminated today, one of the three was finished. No way around it.
"Alright, Group A first. The rules are simple. Total game time is 30 minutes including a 10-minute break — two 10-minute halves, 5 minutes per quarter."
As Saban laid it out, Group A's players listened and readied themselves for battle. Groups B and C sat and waited their turn.
"The losing team will be decided by point differential. Any objections?"
"None."
Without a moment's pause, the game was ready to begin. Waiting on the bench outside the field, Jaehyuk could hear the staff's voices up close.
"College players or not, seven men against eleven — that's rough, isn't it?"
"It'll be tough. And these aren't just any high schoolers, these are the very best recruits in the country..."
"Sure, but they're D1 players. Every one of them was once a top high school recruit too — and they've only gotten stronger at the college level."
As the debate raged back and forth, the game finally kicked off.
Seven men against eleven elite high school recruits — the numbers looked lopsided from the start. An overwhelming disadvantage in manpower that no amount of scheming seemed able to overcome.
But once the game actually began, an unexpected picture unfolded.
The college team had the ball first. A long pass right off the snap.
Thwoop!
The sound of the catch, and a perfect pass play to follow.
"Whoa."
"Sh-showoffs. College team, all right."
"D1's reputation isn't just talk, is it."
That was the consensus at first — heads nodding in admiration. The high schoolers watching let out small gasps of awe as they looked on.
But something was off.
"Touchdown!"
"Touchdown!!"
"...Touchdown?"
Touchdown after touchdown after touchdown for the college team. Group A fought hard behind Dakorien Moore, but the gap in firepower was enormous.
"Wh-who is that player?"
"He's unstoppable..."
"That's Isaiah Horton — the one who transferred to Alabama."
"He was always that good?"
The spotlight meant for the high schoolers had locked onto a single college player. Isaiah Horton — the very man who'd broken his habit through yesterday's session with Jaehyuk.
And ironically, no one was more stunned by the situation than Horton himself.
What is this?
He'd changed his steps. Focused on nothing but the ball and himself. That was all. And his performance had transformed this dramatically.
He wasn't the only one feeling it, either.
"..."
"What on earth is going on."
Nick Saban's eyes had gone wide as saucers. And Kalen DeBoer — the man who'd brought Isaiah Horton here — ran a hand through his hair out of pure habit, utterly flustered.
Thirty minutes later, the final score was revealed.
"56–7. College team wins. Point differential: 49."
"Isaiah Horton. Seven total touchdowns."
A monster had just been born — one that would keep every high schooler waiting on that bench awake at night.