I Have to Make a Touchdown Pass

Starting Wednesday, the stories kept rolling in.

How the tickets had sold out in minutes. How CBS would be broadcasting the game nationwide. How the Governor of Hawaii himself would be attending. That kind of thing.

That was how much attention this game had drawn.

The broadcasts were calling it the greatest high school football game ever played. And when I finished preparations and stepped onto the field, I realized it was no exaggeration at all.

Aloha Stadium, packed to the rafters with people. Drones swarming overhead. Trumpets and drums thundering from the stands.

Drumlines. Marching bands. Cheerleaders.

As if to seize the momentum on our behalf, the two sides' supporters were already locked in a war of nerves.

#. November 19, 2016

#-1. Oahu, Hawaii, USA

#-2. 'Aiea, Honolulu CDP

#-3. Aloha Stadium

With the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kickoff moments away, I called my teammates over to me.

Three times a week, two and a half hours at a stretch, we'd been sweating together — long enough now that a glance could carry whole conversations. But some things you simply don't know unless someone says them out loud.

For example, something like this.

"You all know I really love you guys, right?"

"You're hilarious, Coach."

"I'm serious, why, you love me too, don't you?"

The business of pumping up morale was already done. In the locker room, and out on the field. So what we needed now wasn't fire — it was composure. Calm. Cold. I wanted us walking onto that field perfectly prepared.

"Forget the fifty thousand in the stands. Forget the Governor, CBS, even the NCAA. Winning the championship, same thing. We hold on to just one thought: we walk out there, we devour Saint Louis, we win, and we walk home with our heads high. Got it?"

"OORAH-!!"

"Good. Let's do this exactly as planned. One, two, three!"

"RED RAIDERS!"

Cheers and applause crossed paths in the air, and the special teams sprinted straight onto the field. Saint Louis would be kicking off today.

Peep—!

The ball sailed up from Saint Louis's end. Elvis caught the long kick and started upfield — but alas, he didn't get far. He was brought down right around the 23-yard line.

Confirming that as our starting field position, I put on my helmet, turned back toward the offense, and shouted.

"Let's show them everything we've got!"

"YEAH-!!"

"Okay, LET'S GO-!!"

Sprinting to the line of scrimmage with my teammates, I quickly formed the huddle and delivered the play call.

First down, for starters. We needed a read on their defense, too. So, business as usual.

"I-Double. X-Block, Z-Flash. 45 White."

I'd chosen a rushing scheme built off the I-Formation. Two running backs lined up behind me. After taking the snap I'd turn immediately and hand the ball to the second running back, while the first crashed into the line of scrimmage to open a lane. X-Block was the O-line's blocking scheme. Z-Flash sent a play toward the wide receivers. And 45 White meant—

"HUT!!"

—the running back would plunge through the gap between the fourth and fifth men on the line.

Wham!

Crash!

Harmon dove into the tangled mess of the line of scrimmage — and we managed barely a single yard. You could call it a gain, sure. But I'd expected at least three.

I knew it already. Their defense was good.

Then came the next huddle. This time, I wanted to try a pass. I planned to use the tight end.

"I-Double, DECOY! X-Block, Switch-Jam."

"Let's get this thing rolling~"

Realizing the play was designed around him, Sekope clapped his hands together in delight. Couldn't the celebration wait until it actually worked? I didn't bother saying so. Instead—

"Green- 80!! HUT!"

—I set my stance, took the snap, and dropped back quickly. The formation itself was identical to the last play. Six linemen. Two fullbacks. Even the motion — snap, turn, fake the handoff to the fullback — was the same. The difference began the instant I didn't release the ball.

Having turned, I looked first toward the wide receivers. As expected, the cornerbacks were draped all over them. A deep ball looked rough today. But that glance was meant to be bait anyway, so I swung my eyes without regret toward Sekope's side. The man who'd joined the block had slipped neatly out of the chaos. The practice was paying off. I fired the pass to Sekope.

And then—

Wham!

"Ugh!"

The impact hit me like a freight train. The tackles from Saint Louis's linebackers hurt far more than anything I'd taken from high school opponents so far.

After the first-down call, Saint Louis's number 79 — the man who'd tackled me — spat out a curse, looking genuinely regretful.

"Damn it—!"

He seemed to think that with a fraction more speed, it would have been a sack. But my pass had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gotten out first, and that was all that mattered. So I said to him:

"Good tackle."

"Not next time."

"Looking forward to it."

"Cocky, aren't you."

"All Day."

I played it cool, but letting tackles like that keep landing would become a real problem. The pass timing had been quick because it was a scripted play — if the receivers had all been covered and I'd had to improvise, I'd have been sacked without question. Whether it was a blocking-scheme problem or a matter of individual skill, only time would tell.

"HUT!"

After that, we kept grinding forward yard by yard — but Saint Louis's defense held firm. In the end, we opted to punt, and I headed back to the bench. It was special teams' turn.

"Whew—"

"You're doing fine."

"Their defense is just so solid, sir."

"Think it through calmly. This isn't like any game you've played so far. Your reads look good, so trust your gut out there."

"Yes Sir."

It would've been lovely to drive into field goal range, but we hadn't managed it. In football, when a team fails through third down and sits too far out to attempt a field goal, the offense sends in the special teams for a punt. A punt means kicking the ball away, just like on a kickoff. If you can't earn a first down by the fourth attempt, possession changes hands right there — so the point is to kick it deep and pin the opponent back.

Thwack—!

Sekope's long boot sailed out of bounds somewhere around Saint Louis's 13-yard line. All things considered, an excellent punt.

"Hell of a kick."

"Hey, so..."

"Yeah?"

"Actually, I kind of shanked it."

"What? Seriously?"

"I was thinking, well, screw me — but then it actually flew pretty well. Damn. Nearly died and came back to life."

A mistake turning into a beautiful punt. Call it luck. Somehow, my gut said this game was going to go well.

Then came Saint Louis's first possession. Tua Tagovailoa stepped onto the field.

Saint Louis's offense unfolded exactly as expected. Short passes through the slotback. Then rushes by the quarterback himself. With our defensive end sealed off completely, Saint Louis ground forward until, before anyone noticed, they were inside our 15-yard line.

There was no denying it — dealing with their slotbacks was hard. Their linemen were on another level too. Just as the scoring threat loomed, a red jersey suddenly appeared and ripped the ball straight out of Tua's grasp.

The bench erupted. Players from both teams dove for the loose ball tumbling from Tua's arm. Would it end in a turnover? Would possession change? As a breathless silence settled over our sideline, the referee sprinted to the tangle of bodies and thrust his right arm out toward Saint Louis's end of the field.

And at that very moment—

"THAT'S IT!! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!"

"WHOO—HAA!!"

Our bench caught fire. The referee had ruled that we'd stripped the ball — possession was ours again. I bolted straight onto the field.

"Great tackle, 17!! Great tackle!!"

The one who'd hit Tua hard enough to shake the ball loose was Christopher Tuiloloa, the team's senior linebacker. On a defensive stop that could decide the game's early flow, Tuiloloa grinned at me.

"This is what all that lifting was for. Right?"

"Ha! That's it — keep showing out, Muscle Man."

"You know it. Come On-!!"

Tuiloloa jogged back to the bench, crediting the hours we'd put into the weight room, and I pulled on the helmet in my hands and moved to the new spot of attack. The first quarter was already more than half gone. So far we'd traded blows politely, each side burning its chances in turn. But this drive, I wanted points. At the very least, field goal range.

"I was genuinely pissed earlier. We didn't execute, and we couldn't even get a field goal out of it. This time we do it right. We're going shotgun. Aloha Dance, Y-Shirt. 21 Alpha. Got it?"

A bolder attack than anything we'd run so far. This was something Coach John Morse and I had settled on. While the defense was on the field, I'd talked it through with him, summarized it, and passed it up to Coach Gavin to change our approach. The running game wasn't bad — but I wanted to shake Saint Louis's defense. To do that, we had to mix in passing.

"Blue- 80!"

...

"HUT!"

On a shotgun play from first down, I could see Saint Louis's middle linebacker barking out instructions in a hurry. Teams normally run this on third down — of course they'd read it as a rush.

The safeties dropped back. Sam crashed toward the cornerback. Willy charged straight at me. And in that instant, I froze my throwing motion mid-breath and took off running with the ball tucked in my own hands.

Just because you mix in passing doesn't mean you have to pass. Showing the passing posture is enough.

I'd wanted to see how Saint Louis's defense reacted when we went shotgun at a moment nobody expected — but if I'd naively thrown it, the drive would have died right there. That's why, from the very start, I'd called Blue. Blue: the signal that I might run it myself. With the strongside linebacker (Sam) stretched far away, I'd curl out of the line of scrimmage to the right.

A surprisingly wide lane opened up. Right now, we broke even. From here on, we profited. Every stride earned us yards, and I kept churning until I'd pushed past the 50-yard line before finally stepping out of bounds.

Thanks to that very solid rush, I was riding a little hot. But I'm a quarterback. I have to be colder than anyone. Working to smother the adrenaline fast, I took the play call coming in from the bench.

"We hit them one more time!"

"Let's Go-!"

"Shotgun. Light Speed Pack. Bubble Bubble."

Until now I'd only ever faced teams hopelessly beneath us, so Saint Louis's D-line was keeping my heart pounding. Faster reads. Faster movement. The first quarter wasn't even over yet, but I could feel myself getting sharper, bit by bit. The constant tension of never knowing where the next tackle would come from — trusting my teammates wasn't something I could do the way I used to. Half of it, after all, would probably fail.

Wham!

"!!"

For whatever reason, a defensive tackle and an end dove in at the same time — two behemoths pushing three hundred kilograms combined, and I took the hit with my whole body. The one thing I could praise myself for—

—was that even through a hit that knocked the air clean out of my lungs, I never let go of the ball.

With the offensive line breached far too easily, Coach Gavin ripped off his headset on the bench and hurled it. Ha. Now that was a familiar sight. In my past life I'd destroyed my fair share of equipment too. It usually came out of my salary, though.

"God! I'm dying here!"

"You okay?"

"Whew— give me a sec. Just a second."

I lay back on the turf and let myself recover for a moment. Even at less than a hundred percent, the moment you can stand up — you stand up. Football doesn't wait for the pain to fade. Fail to push past that?

Career backup, forever.

For a quarterback, the body matters, but the mind matters more. The hits accumulate game after game until they rival colliding with a pickup truck, and if you fear that pain, you can do nothing in the pocket. So I thrust out my hand immediately.

Pull me up. Now.

And then—

"Let's actually block this time, fellas."

"Yes."

"Good. I'm fine now. Let's Go."

I didn't forget to encourage the offensive line either, which had shrunk a little under the string of mistakes.

We were at the 41-yard line. Third down. As long as we didn't get pushed further back, even failing this third down would leave us a makeable field goal. Naturally, more yardage was better — so I didn't hesitate to tell my teammates.

"Pistol, Hard-Boiled Egg."

Pistol. Hard-boiled egg. After reeling off the words only we could decode, I checked that the Pistol formation was fully set. Five offensive linemen and a tight end. I stood four yards behind them. Behind me waited the fullback. Two wide receivers to the left. The main wide receiver to the right. Once everything sat exactly where it belonged, I shouted the magic word for the snap.

"HUT!"

The ball came back to me. I faked the handoff to the fullback, spun my body, and faced forward. Once again, the deep ball was a bad idea — their cornerbacks were simply too big. Since I'd never intended to pass in the first place, I used the deep-throwing motion as bait again and then charged straight ahead.

Hard-Boiled Egg — the hard-boiled egg meant: protect my pocket in the shape of a hard-boiled egg. With the defensive ends and linebackers stabbing in from both flanks, so long as the egg kept the pocket sealed, the middle — where the tackles came from — actually loosened up.

I aimed for exactly that and ran. Soon I collided with someone and went down.

Three yards gained. Exactly one yard short of the first down. In frustration, I pounded the turf with my fist.

"Damn it!"

So this drive would end in a field goal after all — Coach was already sending in the special teams.

"You did your job."

"It was one yard, though."

"Trust the special teams."

"Right. Let's go."

"Yeah."

Plenty of people offered encouragement as I came back to the bench. I'd been sacked a few times. But I hadn't lost the ball, and I hadn't handed it to the other side. A handful of completed passes. Some hard-earned yardage. No touchdowns — but as quarterback stat lines went, it wasn't bad.

None of it meant a thing without points, though.

I had to make a touchdown pass.

"You've got to be even better in the second quarter."

"I will be."

"Whew—"

Seeing them only on film was one thing. Going fist to fist with them was another — the difference in player quality was unmistakable. But we had gone toe to toe with them through the entire first quarter, proud and unbowed. And we'd scored first, cracking the 0-0 deadlock.

Three points off a field goal. That was it. That was all Saint Louis and we managed to put on the board in the first quarter.