Second Down
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 30
The rest of homecoming went well. We all went to dinner, joked, and had a good time, and I put the stuff about Kenneth out of my mind. Odds were, if she did have a thing for him, it was one-sided. I mean, he was a senior. He wouldn’t be chasing freshmen. And it wasn’t like I didn’t look at girls still, even though I was more or less with Melanie.
Hell, we hadn’t even said what we were yet. It was just my insecurities getting to me. After knowing that Brandy, who was the first girl I actually “dated,” cheated on me, it was hard not to see that in Melanie.
The funny thing was, I knew I’d gone through this in my dream life. I knew worrying about shit like this didn’t matter. If they were going to cheat, they were going to cheat, and no amount of worry would stop that, so it was better to just live my life. I could remember bad dates, getting cheated on, and even cheating on girls as I’d grown up.
The thing was, while I could remember all the things that happened, I didn’t really have any of the feelings associated with them. Which was maybe why, even though I’d gotten over it in my dream life, I still had to deal with how it made me feel now, second-guessing myself, even knowing that was what I was doing.
Maybe it was that thing where you can tell a kid the stove is hot, but he won’t take it seriously until he touches it.
Or maybe I was just a wimp.
The evening had ended well. She had her gym bag still, so she switched back into her tennis shoes at the restaurant and we told Mickey we’d get home on our own. Honestly, I think Mickey was happy to ditch us. He might be my friend, but Hanna was all over him at the restaurant and I think he thought he had a shot with her, and didn’t want a couple of freshmen spoiling it for him.
So we walked, holding hands, for the five blocks back to her house. She’d been in an amazing mood, which she shared with me on the front porch when I “dropped her off.” We didn’t exactly do any hardcore making out, since her mom and neighbors could see us, but we were clearly past the first date peck thing.
Even better, there’d been no BS with Josh when I got home this time, so I got to go to sleep feeling amazing.
Which was a good thing, because today was our homecoming game. Coach had still had us do mostly running plays the previous week, but we did even more passing drills this week, so I really hoped he was planning on changing up the game plan a bit.
I went out to the field for warm-ups a little early because I was expecting Alex to be there. I knew Coach liked to be on the sidelines early, making sure everything was ready for the game, and I wanted to ask him if Alex could come down on the field for a bit, but I wasn’t as early as I hoped. They were already there, way early, in the front row near the fifty-yard line, when I got out to the field. Alex practically vibrated with excitement when he spotted me.
“Blake! Blake!” Alex yelled, waving frantically.
Eduardo grabbed his brother’s shirt to keep him from tumbling over the railing.
I grinned and waved back, then jogged over to Coach Holloway, who was indeed already on the field.
“Hey Coach, my friend’s little brother’s been dying to see the field up close. Mind if I bring him down for a minute before warm-ups start?”
Coach Holloway glanced up at the stands and grimaced in his normal way, but I could swear it softened slightly at Alex’s obvious enthusiasm.
“Make it quick, Sims. I need you stretching in ten,” he said, sounding as gruff as ever.
The man was committed to his persona.
“Yes, sir, it won’t take long.”
I headed toward the Guzmans. Eduardo’s mom had her hands full trying to contain Alex’s bouncing while Eduardo looked equal parts embarrassed and amused.
“Tranquilo, mijo!” Elena scolded Alex gently as I neared them.
“Hey, Mrs. Guzman. Mind if I borrow Alex for a minute? Coach said I could show him around.”
Elena’s eyes crinkled warmly. “Of course, Blake.”
I reached up and helped Alex climb carefully over the railing. His eyes went huge as he took in the field from ground level.
“It’s so big!” he breathed, spinning in a slow circle.
“Pretty cool, right? Come on, I’ll show you the best part.”
I led him toward the nearest goalpost, watching his face as he craned his neck up at the towering yellow bars.
“Go ahead,” I encouraged. “You can touch it.”
Alex reached out reverently and placed his palm against the metal pole. “It’s so much taller than on TV.”
I just smiled while he explained the details of field goals and his favorite players. I could imagine his family weren’t big football people. I knew Eduardo preferred soccer, since he kept reminding me that it was actual football and ours wasn’t real football.
At least I had Alex on my side. I introduced him around to a few teammates who were arriving. Joe gave him a high five and Mickey let him throw the ball to him a few times. I knew they were doing it as a favor to me, but Mickey at least got into it. Alex’s excitement was pretty infectious.
When Melanie and some of the other cheerleaders walked by, Alex suddenly got shy.
“Hi, Blake!” she said, coming over to me. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Alex, Eduardo’s little brother. Alex, this is Melanie, Hannah, and Emily.”
“Hi Alex!” they chorused, making him duck his head and shuffle behind me.
“He’s usually a lot more talkative,” I said with a laugh.
“Oh sure, blame it on us. We’ll see you out there, Blake. Nice meeting you, Alex!”
As they headed off to their warm-up area, Alex peeked back out.
“They’re pretty,” he whispered.
“I agree,” I said.
“Sims!” Coach Holloway yelled from across the field. “Time’s up.”
“That’s my cue, buddy,” I said, guiding Alex back toward the stands where Eduardo and his mom were waiting. “Up you go.”
I lifted him over the railing, making sure Eduardo had a good grip on him before letting go. Alex immediately started chattering about everything he’d seen.
“ ... and Blake let me touch the goal post and I met the cheerleaders and...”
“Breathe, dummy,” Eduardo laughed.
“Thank you, Blake,” Elena said warmly after slapping Eduardo on the back of the head for calling his brother a dummy. “This means so much to him.”
“Any time, Mrs. Guzman. Thanks for coming to support us.” I gave Alex a final wave. “Cheer loud, okay? I’ll be listening for you.”
“I will!” Alex promised. “I’m gonna yell super loud every time you throw a touchdown!”
“Alex, inside voice,” Elena reminded him, but she was smiling.
I jogged back to join my teammates for warm-ups, grinning. His enthusiasm was contagious and I couldn’t wait to get out there and play.
I got to go out with Andre and Dale for the coin toss. While I had done them with the Freshman team, this was my first time out for JV. Dale was captain and Andre was co-captain, but I guess the coach decided I was doing a good enough job that I could at least join them.
Monterey’s QB was their captain and, from what I had seen in the videos we watched of them from last year, he had one hell of an arm. On top of that, there was another player with him. Their center was a freaking mountain. He had to be at least two hundred and fifty pounds and made Andre look small by comparison. He was going to give our defense some real trouble.
The ref held up the coin. “Monterey is the visiting team. Call it in the air.”
“Heads,” their QB said.
The coin spun and landed. “Tails. Wheaton, it’s your call.”
“We’ll receive,” Dale said.
The kickoff actually went pretty well with the receiver running it back to our thirty-two. And then it was running plays, as always. Joe managed to plow through for three yards for our first down. Not a ton of yards, but movement.
The next play was another handoff; this time, Jerry broke through for six. Slow and steady marching down the field was Coach’s game. Except, the defense obviously knew our game. The defense was playing tight, clearly expecting what we were going to do.
At least on the next play, Coach called for a pass. But then Coach often calls a short pass on third down, and their coverage was all over Mickey. Thankfully, Mickey knew his job and, after cutting across on a slant route, he turned back hard, losing his defender for a second and giving me the opening I needed. I drilled him for an eight-yard gain, and he held onto the ball as he was hammered into the ground right after he caught it.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was a first down.
The drive continued that way, just grinding it out. We made it all the way to their seventeen before things stalled out.
Coach called another passing play on third down, and Mickey couldn’t shake his defender this time. I dumped the ball onto the ground, in front of Mickey and on fourth down we went for a field goal. Gerald split the uprights, and we took the lead at 3 – 0.
Gerald’s kickoff was great, and our special teams pinned them deep, but it didn’t matter. Their quarterback came out firing, picking apart our secondary with these amazing passes. Seven plays later, they were in the end zone with their first score of the night.
Our next few drives were rough. They had our number, stacking the box against the run, then dropping into coverage when we tried to pass. I tried a few audibles to try to shift things around, but nothing was working. We were just too predictable, going to the same plays over and over.
Coach kept calling runs, trying to establish something, anything. Four yards here, five there. But it wasn’t enough.
“They know exactly what we’re doing,” I said to Mickey as we headed for the huddle after another incomplete pass.
“No shit,” he said, sounding as frustrated as I felt.
Sure enough, they stuffed Jerry for a two-yard gain, forcing us to punt.
Things were very different on the other side of the field. Their offense was a machine, mixing runs with these long passes that our defense just couldn’t seem to counter. Not all of them were perfect, of course, but next to how little ground we were gaining, they made us look like chumps. It didn’t help that our defense was gassed from being on the field so long. By early in the second quarter, the score was 14 to 3. The next drive was even more frustrating. Two yards. Four yards. Two yards. One yard. Coach called timeout and tried to pep talk us, half bully us into making something happen, but nothing changed. How could it? We kept running the same plays over and over.
We couldn’t move the ball.
Montgomery kept on rolling. On their next drive, they only needed six plays to put the score at 21 – 3.
We got the ball back with just over two minutes in the half. Part of me hoped Coach would let us do something different. We had passing plays in the damn book, we’d even practiced them. Why wouldn’t he let us run them?
But nope. Handoff for one yard. Handoff for three yards.
Their final drive of the half, with less than a minute left on the clock, was just salt in the wound. They marched down the field and kicked a field goal to make it 24 – 3.
As we headed to the locker room, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. We were better than this. But being predictable was killing us. Their defense knew exactly what was coming on every play.
It was like this every freaking game, even the ones we won. And I was getting tired of it. As we headed toward the field house, I caught up to Coach Holloway near the entrance.
“Coach, we need to change things up. They’ve got our playbook figured out.”
Coach Holloway’s face tightened. “Blake, we’ve been over this. We’re not going to...”
“He’s right, Scott,” Coach Easley, our offensive coordinator, said, coming up to us, clipboard tucked under his arm. “They’re calling our plays before we run them.”
“We stick to what works,” Coach Holloway said.
I know I should let Coach Easley try and talk some sense into him, but it was so damn frustrating how pigheaded he was.
“Except it isn’t working. I don’t mean any disrespect, but it’s frustrating as hell to keep running into their teeth and having to punt the ball. We’re predictable. Look at their offense. Long passes, short passes, runs. They’re making it hard as hell for our guys to set up against them.”
Coach Holloway looked furious and said, “Get in the locker room, Sims.”
Great. All that, and the only thing I’d managed to do was get in the doghouse with him. You’d think he’d want a quarterback who actually wanted to win. I went inside and dropped onto the bench next to Mickey.
“What’d he say?” Mickey asked.
“Nothing useful.”
Mickey grunted. I guess they appreciated that I was the one putting my neck out there, since we all wanted the same thing. But I’d rather win than just have their appreciation.
Coach Holloway’s halftime speech was all about execution and effort, completely ignoring our actual problems. The guys looked defeated.
As we headed back out for the second half, I grabbed Mickey’s arm.
“Hold up. Get the others.”
Mickey nodded, corralling Jerry, Joe, and the rest of our offensive backfield into a small group just inside the locker room.
“Don’t look like we’re just counting minutes ‘til the end of the game,” I said. “We’re not done yet.”
“Come on, Blake,” Jerry said. “They’re up by twenty-one. We’re cooked.”
“Only if we give up,” I said. “That’s the only way we actually lose, if we quit trying.”
“But Coach won’t...” Dwight started.
“Forget what Coach won’t do. Think about what we can do. We turned this season around and we’ve been winning games. Playing his playbook. Every other team’s known we’re going to run the ball, and we still made it work. We can do it again.”
“Blake!” Coach Holloway yelled from outside. “What are you doing? Get out here!”
I couldn’t tell if the guys were buying into it or not, but I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel yet.
Thankfully, our defense managed to finally hold them on the first drive. I wasn’t sure the team could recover if they just came out and scored again the second they took the field.
Coach called another run play, but I’d had enough of that garbage. He might pull me and put Jorden back in, but I didn’t care.
“Right Slot, Thirty-two slant,” I said as we walked out onto the field.
“But Coach said...” Mickey started and Dale cut him off.
“You heard the call. Run it.”
I gave him a slight nod and he gave me a look like it was my funeral. Coach would know I’d ignored him and called my own play, and it wasn’t like I was going to throw my guys under the bus for my decision. I hoped Dale knew that and was glad he backed me up.
The snap came back clean and Mickey took off. He didn’t break for his slant until ten yards out, going at an angle but still heading downfield. When he did, his coverage turned back toward our line, I guess thinking he was going to keep it under ten yards, since that was what Coach always did. The defender actually slid and hit dirt as he tried to stop his momentum to get going back the right way.
It had them looking like idiots and Mickey was all alone. Mickey broke hard inside on his route, and I hit him in stride. He turned it up field for eight more yards before their safety brought him down.
“Hell, yeah!” Jerry whooped as we hustled to the line.
Another run signal came in. Another run play. Coach’s eyes were trying to burn a hole through me as he watched me walk to the huddle. This time, I sent Dwight deep. The safety crept up again but kept looking over at Mickey, I guess afraid we’d try that play again. Dwight blew past his corner and was hauling ass. Their guy took off after him, but he was a step slow, again seeming to expect Dwight to cut back for a shorter pass. I dropped it right over his shoulder for thirty-three yards.
Coach was losing his mind on the sideline, but I didn’t care. We were finally moving the ball.
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