Double Team
“······.”
“······.”
The moment Jaehyuk scored his touchdown, silence swept across the field.
Hopkins, savoring that stillness like something he'd felt once before, jogged over to where Jaehyuk stood in the end zone.
“That's our Redline! Bringing honor to Kansas, I see!”
“What are you talking about?”
Jaehyuk said it with a completely straight face.
“It's not Kansas's honor. It's mine.”
“Ah. Of course it is.”
Only after that brief exchange did the crowd come unfrozen, like people waking from a spell, and a low murmur began to ripple outward.
From the players lined up on the field, to the athletes waiting on the sidelines, all the way to the industry scouts and insiders.
Until now they had watched Isaiah Horton's overwhelming talent, and now they found themselves face to face with a talent that had just cast even Horton aside.
Trudge, trudge.
As Jaehyuk jogged back with the ball, the players of Group C offered him a word each.
“Nice play.”
“So knocking out Guillory wasn't a fluke.”
“Play like that, and we might actually survive this thing!”
Amid it all, a few of them were practically glowing, as if they'd stumbled onto a dying ember of hope.
“Honestly, I was freaking out about getting cut. But now I feel so much better.”
“Me too, no joke. Group A has Dakorian, the number-one ranked receiver, and Group B has Mateo, the prodigy quarterback—and the score gap still ended up like that. Until a second ago I genuinely thought we were doomed!”
“Think we can hold this score?”
Jaehyuk had been about to tune out the chatter—Anxiety, relief, lingering doubt all tangled together in the Group C players' voices—but he clicked his tongue instead.
“Tch. Enough garbage talk. Get ready. It's our turn on defense.”
Having already witnessed what Jaehyuk could do, the Group C players snapped into motion with remarkable crispness.
When the scrimmage had started, there'd been a flicker of dismissiveness toward the Asian running back—but now you could scour the field with a magnifying glass and find no trace of it.
As everyone got into position, Hopkins sidled up to Jaehyuk.
“We're not getting cut, right?”
“Cut?”
Jaehyuk glared at him.
Hopkins shrank back and scurried toward his own position.
“We're going to win.”
At the voice behind him, Hopkins turned and nodded.
“Huh? Oh—yeah, we've gotta win. Group A at least.”
“No. We're beating those guys.”
“······What?”
Jaehyuk's eyes were fixed on the college team.
Hopkins wondered if he'd misheard, but the game was already about to resume.
With fewer players on each side, the extra point was waived—the seven points simply stood as scored.
“Hey, Jaehyuk! Think you can play safety?!”
“Only one way to find out.”
What else would I do at this point?
Standing at the deepest point in the middle of the field, Jaehyuk studied Horton.
He'd expected the man to be rattled after that loss. Instead, his complexion was calmer than ever.
So college players really are built differently.
But—
‘Not against me.’
**
Though it had lasted only a short while, Jaehyuk's performance had stunned everyone.
For the spectators who'd been waiting to see what kind of showcase the seemingly invincible Horton would deliver this time, it could only come as a shock.
“Who is that kid?”
“A stationary player just beat Horton off the line while he was sprinting in full stride······.”
“Heh heh.”
A one-on-one against Isaiah Horton. And then a final duel fought on pure skill alone.
The last victory had belonged to the small-framed Asian running back.
“I can't make sense of what I just saw.”
“Neither can I.”
Horton had read every one of Jaehyuk's movements perfectly.
None of the flashy deception—Jaehyuk's signature trademark—had worked on him.
And yet in the head-on break that followed, Horton was beaten so thoroughly there wasn't a single excuse left to make.
People were still struggling to accept the unbelievable scene.
“Maybe he's worn down from playing game after game?”
“Hmm, we'll have to see. Horton's a receiver—his true value shows best on offense.”
“Still, Alabama's looking pretty promising for next year, isn't it······.”
The game resumed.
This time it was the college team's turn on offense.
This was the squad that had mercilessly crushed Groups A and B with relentless passing and seamless teamwork.
All eyes were on how Group C would hold them off when—
“Green! Turbo, turbo! Ready-ready!”
The college quarterback's cadence rang out.
The ball was snapped.
Paba-bak!
A team reduced to just seven men.
Because of it, the Group C players came storming toward the quarterback with ferocious pressure.
On top of that, they'd committed a full triple team to Isaiah Horton—a strategy devised after watching Groups A and B collapse.
It might have stung the earlier two teams to hear it, but before the game even started, everyone had confidently agreed it was fine.
Thanks to that, Group C had used the other squads' failures as their textbook and built what should have been a flawless plan of their own······.
Paba-ba-bak!!
“Hup—!”
“Damn it!”
Horton shook off two of the triple team in an instant.
Hopkins, the last man left, scrambled desperately to stay with him—but Horton, moving with veteran precision, cradled the pass with effortless grace.
From the moment of the snap, he'd thought of nothing but the ball and himself. He hadn't even registered that a triple team had been assigned to him.
It was a flawless performance—man and ball fused into one.
Fweee!
“That's insane. He caught that pass against a triple team!”
“Horton is the real deal.”
“How did Alabama even discover him and land the recruitment? His numbers at Miami were pretty underwhelming, by all accounts.”
Gasps and exclamations poured from the sidelines.
And then every gaze shifted to Jaehyuk, the last line of defense.
He was already sprinting toward Horton, who had just hauled in the pass.
He'd been running before the ball was ever caught.
“I see······.”
Who would win this matchup?
Tap.
But against all expectation—
The instant Horton saw Jaehyuk charging at him, he stepped out of bounds.
“······.”
“Whoa.”
“Composed, isn't he?”
Avoiding the one-on-one.
Horton's cold-eyed strategy: no more gambling, just take the yards and call the gain a win.
And so the collision between him and Jaehyuk never came.
“Well, with Jaehyuk playing like that, there's no reason for him to accept a one-on-one.”
“He'll grind out the ground bit by bit like this and walk it straight into the end zone.”
Indeed, the college team wasn't forcing anything.
They pressed Group C back methodically with plays guaranteed to move the chains.
It was a slightly different approach than the one they'd used against the first two squads—which was itself a measure of just how much they now respected Group C.
“Touchdown!”
In the end, the college team, having marched to the very lip of the end zone, scored on a quarterback keep.
“Haa, haa.”
“Hahh. Whew.”
Group C had given up the point despite their 11-on-7 advantage. The ragged breathing told the story of how hard they'd run.
“Jaehyuk, what do we do?”
“About what?”
Hopkins, who'd been shadowing Horton the whole drive, wiped the sweat from his face.
“Why don't you switch to corner and cover Horton yourself?”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“I just don't think we can shut Horton down as we are······.”
Jaehyuk looked at Hopkins with cold eyes.
Under that wordless stare, Hopkins wilted.
“Not confident?”
“Huh? No, I mean—the guy's a D1 college athlete. You saw him out there. He was flying.”
“Next year, we'll be fighting in a place crawling with guys like that. You planning to make the same excuse then?”
Hopkins had no answer to that. He shook his head.
Jaehyuk smacked him on the back and shouted.
“Leave the scoring to me. You go break the man in front of you. I don't care if you can't stop him—put it all on the line, and I've got your back.”
And with those words, something clicked for Hopkins.
Come to think of it—haven't I been playing too timid, too worried about what's behind me?
Have I been so busy watching the opponent that I forgot my own job?
“Hopkins.”
“Yeah.”
“Believe in yourself. You're a damn 4-star recruit. Practically a lock for 5 stars next year. Right?”
“······Yeah.”
Why is that?
The same words everyone had always said to him—but coming from Jaehyuk, delivered like an acknowledgment, they filled him with confidence.
Right. This is······.
It's exhilarating—this monster of a player looks at me and sees something worth recognizing.
And that single fact erased every trace of self-doubt Hopkins had been carrying.
“Next defensive series. I'll do it right.”
“That's the spirit. Ah, you little—always making me say it out loud. Just play well on your own for once.”
Jaehyuk snorted a laugh and headed back to the running back position. Watching his retreating back, Hopkins made a vow—this time, for real, he wouldn't let him down.
What followed was a grinding back-and-forth battle.
And astonishingly, the game stayed dead even.
“Touchdown! 14 to 7!”
“Touchdown. 14 to 14!”
“Touchdown······!”
With no kicker on either side, a touchdown was the only way to put points on the board.
And so, even as the two sides hammered away at each other, a razor-thin balance of scores somehow held.
“Score: 28 to 28!”
“OHHHH!”
“My heart can't take this. It's thrilling.”
“Who knew an exhibition match could be this good?!”
At last, the fourth quarter arrived.
Five minutes remained.
Group A's elimination was already a certainty.
They had no further reason to fight for their lives—and yet Group C was pouring everything they had into the game.
“We can win this!”
Jaehyuk's roar had carried through the entire game.
And every time he shouted, the Group C players felt their hearts pound.
We can win.
Against the college squad that crushed every other team of high school prospects without breaking a sweat.
······Us. WE CAN!!
“GRAAAAH!!”
“We can do this!”
“Screw it! Throw everything we've got at them right here!!”
As the game wore on, the players burned hotter than they ever had in their lives.
And the same fire was blazing on the other side of the ball.
“Hahh, hahh.”
“Hhh—whew.”
“We can win? Ha! Says who—”
Three games had already drained them to the bone, but the will to lose simply did not exist.
This was a matter of pride. Of honor.
They might have been only seven, but every one of them was a D1 college player.
They weren't about to hand a loss to a pack of fledglings.
“It's time to let go of our stubbornness.”
Horton said it as he caught his breath.
At his words, the players turned to look at him.
“Let's run a double team on Jaehyuk.”
“What?!”
A radical proposal.
But more than half of every point Jaehyuk had scored had come off his own rushing touchdowns. It was an opinion that held water.
Jaehyuk possessed speed and breakaway power so fierce that not even Horton could contain him.
As if proving their first meeting was no fluke, he'd kept forcing points onto the board ever since.
And on top of that, his speed now sat at B-grade—he was, for all intents and purposes, a monster.
“But we only have seven. Wanting a double team doesn't mean we can afford one.”
Someone objected.
And he was right—the moment two men committed to Jaehyuk, the matchup became ten on five.
A two-to-one advantage in numbers.
At that point, no matter how much the high schoolers lagged behind the college players, the pass would get off every time.
And these weren't just any high schoolers—they were the very best in the nation.
“······Right. That's exactly what we want.”
“What do you mean?”
“We bait the pass. A pass always carries the risk of a mistake—especially from high schoolers.”
At Horton's cold analysis, the remaining six players fell deep into thought.
“We've already given up three of their four touchdowns to Jaehyuk. And in all three, he never showed a single mistake—just relentless, monstrous play.”
“He's got a point. Honestly, if we leave things as they are, that little Asian kid is going to score no matter what we do.”
“Then better to force them into their second option—the one far more likely to break down.”
“Hmm.”
Little by little, the college team was persuaded by Horton's logic. Before the drive began, his proposal was adopted.
“Huh?”
“What's that? No way······.”
Right before the snap, the insiders watching the college team's formation went slack-jawed at the alignment they'd chosen.
“A double team······!!”
“They're serious.”
The stunning sight of elite D1 college athletes stacking a double team against a high schooler.
That was no longer treating the opponent as a high school player at all.
It was the kind of coverage reserved for a peer—a college teammate. An ace.
“······.”
“······.”
Nick Saban and his staff, along with every insider on the sideline, pressed their lips into tight lines and watched the field.
Group C, standing on the field, was rattled too.
“You'd go this far?”
“We're still high schoolers, you know, big guys.”
Half-teasing, half-provoking, they tried to shake the college players—but got no reaction whatsoever.
Instead, it was the Group C players whose composure began to fray.
‘We're screwed!’
It had been barely twenty-five minutes of scrimmage, but somewhere along the way, Jaehyuk had transformed into their spiritual anchor.
The dominance of his play. The grounded, evidence-backed confidence he carried because of it.
And the rough-edged way he took even the team's morale into his own hands.
“Everybody, get your heads back in the game!”
Sensing the mood shift, Jaehyuk roared. He could not—would not—lose this game.
“You think this is my game alone? They just handed us the perfect stage to show what the rest of you can do!”
He's right. Football is a team sport.
At Jaehyuk's shout, Group C came back to themselves.
“Every scout and insider out there is watching. Every single one of your plays, your every move—it's all being written down. You really don't want to finish this thing looking absolutely badass?”
“OHHHH!!”
“Yeah! Let's do it! What's there I can't do?!”
“College players? Fine—we'll bury them with numbers of our own!”
“They dare throw a double team at him? That means they're ignoring the rest of us. Let's show them exactly how badly they chose.”
The embers Jaehyuk's words had banked leapt back to full flame in an instant.
Watching it happen, Nick and the others couldn't hold back their admiration.
“That boy has aura.”
It wasn't merely a matter of individual skill.
Jaehyuk had the power to change the very air around him.
An aura—the presence of a player whose mere existence altered the battlefield.
Nick had seen a handful of such players over his long career.
And every single one of them went on to carve his name into the history books.
“DeBoer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you feel it too?”
“······Yes, sir!”
In truth, until moments ago, DeBoer had already been drunk on more joy than he could handle—over Horton's transformation alone.
After the dismal season they'd just endured, he'd been drowning under the criticism and hostile noise from the Alabama faithful.
And Isaiah Horton, the man he'd brought in from Miami, had received anything but a warm welcome.
So watching Horton move like a man reborn had filled him with joy······.
‘We MUST get him. No matter what!!’
And to think Horton wasn't even the whole prize!
No—Horton was the side dish.
The real deal is that kid right there. Kim Jaehyuk of Kansas.
Watching Group C's game, DeBoer could not calm the swelling in his chest.
Everyone here was surely feeling the same thing.
That this small player from the East was going to become a great one—the man who would change the very currents of American football.
“You'll bring him in, won't you?”
Nick said it with a wry grin.
Old habits—the elbow bends inward, as they say—and even Nick couldn't help playing favorites with Alabama.
“Absolutely! I will bring him in—no matter what it takes.”
And at that very moment—
“SET!!!”
“RAAAAH!”
“HUP!”
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The final quarter had begun.