Chapter 44

David
“We’ve been putting in pieces of the offense to this point. Today, we bring it all together,” Coach Thomas, the Trojans’ offensive coordinator, announced.

David had marked the day on his calendar because it was to be his first actual scrimmage. They’d brought in officials and planned to treat the practice like a real game. Well, a practice game. The coaching staff had different scenarios planned, like two-minute drills and red zones.

To simulate game-like conditions, there wouldn’t be any coaches on the field of play. David was nervous right now because his greatest weakness was receiving signals from the sideline. Even though he’d had some time to work with the offense, both the playbook and the signals were new to him. To help him, they’d strapped a mini-playbook to his arm to let him know what the signals meant.

Much of USC’s philosophy was to line up on the ball instead of going to a huddle to call the play. This forced the defense to be ready. An added benefit was that as long as the offense wasn’t making a substitution, it prevented the defense from doing so. The quarterback would have the center snap the ball if the defense had players running on and off the field.

In reality, USC never seemed to use the hurry-up offense to the extent that David would have preferred. They would line up on the ball all right. But then they would look over at the sideline, get the play, and wait for the play clock to get under ten seconds before snapping the ball.

“The first scenario is right after the opening kickoff. The offense has the ball at the twenty-five yard line,” Coach Clayton announced.

The referee set the ball on the right hash mark. Coach Thomas brought the offense together before sending them onto the field.

“Dive right on one.”

David jogged out and calmed his mind.

’You got this,’ he thought.

Off to his right were Nolan Hammer, lined up just off the tackle at tight end; Tyrell Mulford in the slot; and Amari Weeks at wide receiver. On the left was Bill Callaway, who had managed to crack the starting lineup at the other wide receiver spot. At running back was Marcus Eshete, who had earned second-team all-conference honors last year.

The dive was a quick-hitting play where David was in the shotgun, with Marcus a step behind him on his right. David would hand the ball off, and Marcus was supposed to run between the center and right guard. It was meant to gain short yardage.

It was one of the foundational plays that many others could be run off of. To make those plays work, you had to show this one to the defense and force them to respect it. The best-case scenario would be that it picked up four or five yards. If that were the case, the Trojans would keep running it down the defense’s throats.

It was akin to throwing a body blow in a prizefight. If you hit them hard enough, their arms would begin to drop to protect themselves. In football, that meant the defense would start to cheat up to stop the run. That was when you snapped off an overhand right to the head—or, in football parlance, ran a play-action pass.

When David got to his spot on the field, he saw that Coach Farrow was about to do what he should when faced with a rookie quarterback. He would force David out of his comfort zone by making him make split-second decisions.

David checked his reads. The safeties were in a two-deep zone to prevent the long ball. The middle linebacker was creeping up into the hole where Marcus planned to run. He was goading David into making an audible to a play-action pass. Coach Farrow knew USC’s offense. He would recognize that the most likely play was for David to throw the ball to the tight end over the center of the field where the linebacker had responsibility.

David gambled that it was a deception. It would be easy for the linebacker to rush back to his pass responsibilities just before the snap. This was why Coach Farrow was such a challenge to face as a defensive coordinator.

David stood up and called a fake audible.

“Trojan! Trojan!”

He made a hand signal for the tight end to take a couple of steps further out to give him more room to make a catch. Then he put his hands out and called out the snap count.

“Hike!”

The middle linebacker had eyes on Nolan as he held up his hand to indicate he was open. David made the requisite ‘fake’ to Marcus and then hunched over as if to hide the ball. He pivoted and stood up as if to pass.

Meanwhile, Marcus had the ball and broke an arm tackle at the line of scrimmage. The middle linebacker was backpedaling when he figured out it wasn’t a pass. He planted his foot to come back to make the tackle, which he did, but it was six yards down the field.

The next thing David knew, he went sprawling. Percy was berating himself as the flag flew.

“Dammit! I thought you had the ball, and I was finally going to bury you. I’m so sorry,” he said as he helped David up.

“Dick!” David said and gave Percy a playful shove.

He ran to the line where the referee was placing the ball after the penalty. No one hurried up on the defensive side because the clock was stopped, and the offense used the time after a penalty to get a play in and substitute players.

The middle linebacker was screaming at his charges to get set as the official started the clock.

“Hike!” David called.

Flags went flying, letting David know this was a free play. He saw Bill make a move David hadn’t seen before, which told him the defensive back he was up against hadn’t seen it either. Bill flew up the sideline full-out, and David launched a long pass. The safety raced over to help, but Bill had open grass in front of him. He collected the ball in stride and raced for the end zone to set the tone for the day.