Chapter 13

Coach Jackson Farrow
Head Coach Dylan Clayton had called everyone off the recruiting trail for a quick meeting. Summer school was to start the following week, and they had thirteen new additions to USC football arriving on campus. Fourteen, if you counted David Dawson.

The current year’s class was small because USC had signed a big class Dylan’s first year at the school, causing class sizes to be out of balance. A typical recruiting class would have been twenty to twenty-five new players. Nevertheless, though this class was small, the recruiting services had ranked their recruits in the top ten nationally once again. With so few scholarships to offer, they’d had to be picky about who they brought in.

Had the class size been close to average, they would have offered a handful of players who weren’t four- or five-star rated. Every program needed three-star athletes to balance out their roster. Those were the ones who didn’t receive all the press but who typically worked their asses off to make the team and who eventually earned playing time.

Jackson was confused about why the coaches had been called back to campus. They were currently in an open recruiting period for the following year’s class. All the coaches should have been on the road meeting potential players. He hadn’t been scheduled to be back on campus until Saturday.

Jackson had a few minutes before the meeting, so he went to the office of USC’s recruiting coordinator, Bryant Franzese, to update him on what he’d been up to.

“Coach?”

“Hey, Bryant. How’s everything going?”

“Not so good. I just got word that the quarterback from Clemson decided to transfer to Michigan. So with Travis Barry going to Western Michigan, we’re left with Jaden Ponder as our backup QB,” Bryant shared.

“I bet Matt’s relieved,” Jackson said and immediately wished he hadn’t.

In his opinion, the Clemson kid was much better than Matt Long, their current starter. Matt would have likely been their backup for another year if Dylan had held an open competition during fall practice.

“The Clemson guy was told he would back up Matt,” Bryant shared.

That would explain why he decided to go to Michigan. They were in desperate need of a quality quarterback.

But as Bryant said, that left a junior, Jaden Ponder, as QB2.

During spring ball, Jaden’s throwing mechanics had steadily gotten worse. Jackson believed it was because Dylan, deliberately or not, had gotten into the kid’s head and messed him up. By the end, Jaden had been overthrowing every receiver. When the ball sailed, defensive backs quickly figured out that they should play behind the receivers and intercept the wayward passes. When that happened, Dylan would lose his mind, making the entire situation worse.

The vicious cycle had gotten so bad that Jackson was shocked that Jaden hadn’t transferred out. Jackson figured that the only reason he hadn’t was that the kid could read a depth chart. With Travis leaving, two lightly recruited redshirt freshmen were his only competition to back up Matt Long. Odds were good that Jaden would get some playing time.

Bryant looked at the clock.

“We have to go.”

Jackson was almost to the coaches’ conference room when he stopped short. Waiting by the door was someone who looked sort of like his daughter.

“What did you do to your hair?”

“I got a perm. Do you like it?” Rachel asked.

The earnest look on her face made him swallow the laugh that begged to come out.

“It’s different. I’m just used to your straight hair,” was the best he could come up with.

He could tell his daughter wasn’t amused. She shoved a stack of sticky notes into his hand.

“Here are your messages,” she said and stomped off.

Jackson would have to apologize to her after the meeting.

He took his usual seat next to Dylan’s spot at the head of the table. Across from him was his counterpart, Offensive Coordinator Wyatt Thomas. On his side of the table were his defensive position coaches.

Dylan walked in and took his seat. Two of his staff handed out stacks of paper.

“Gentlemen, we have a major problem. With Travis transferring to Western Michigan, our only viable backup for Matt Long is Jaden Ponder. Matt was already injured this spring; we’d be crazy not to have a backup plan.

“I don’t see Jaden as that backup,” Dylan continued. “I’ve been working with Jaden, and he’s just not going to get there.”

“Coach, I think you were too hard on Jaden,” Wyatt stated. “Jaden isn’t Ridge Townsend. Nor is he Matt Long. You’re not going to be able to mold him into something he’s not, no matter how much you may want to. Trying to do that is just frustrating both of you and seems to be making Jaden worse.”

“That’s why I called this meeting and insisted you all attend. While everyone gets settled, you’re getting a list of every available quarterback in the transfer portal.”

“I thought we were getting the kid from Clemson,” Wyatt said, looking upset.

Jackson ducked his head. Dylan would have to clean up his own mess.

“That fell through. He’s going to Michigan,” Dylan said.

“But I talked to him yesterday, and he was making arrangements to sign his financial aid paperwork this morning. It was a done deal,” Wyatt pressed.

“I don’t think it was as done as you thought,” Dylan shot back irritably.

“Did Michigan offer him something?” Wyatt asked.

“They guaranteed him a chance to start. I had to explain that it would be an uphill battle to unseat Matt Long,” Dylan said.

“But if he is better...” Wyatt began.

Dylan slammed his hand on the table. Every coach in the room froze in their seat.

“Matt Long is my starting quarterback, and that’s final. Do you have a problem with that?”

Wyatt tentatively shook his head ‘no.’

“Then let’s get busy. First, we need to go over this list again and see if there’s anyone better than Jaden Ponder who is interested in USC.”

It took three hours of discussion for Dylan to finally admit that anyone better than Jaden would also want assurances of a shot at playing time.

“What about Dawson?” Wyatt asked. “He’s already starting the first game. I say we move him to offense and let him play his natural position.”

The room went quiet as all eyes turned to see how bad the blowup was about to be.

“That might work,” Dylan said, shocking everyone. “I’ve got him so confused that he wouldn’t dare challenge Matt for the starting job. Do you think he would accept being a backup?”

“He might be playing baseball. David was just named to the All-Pac-12 team and was MVP for the Trojans. If you put him through too much grief, he might just decide to switch sports,” Wyatt said.

“I also have him penciled in as starting at outside linebacker,” Jackson said.

Jackson had thrown that out because privately, he was still pissed off at how much David Dawson had been jerked around during the spring. It appeared as though Wyatt felt the same by his comments about David’s baseball success. He had to agree that if they jerked David around too much more, baseball might be his best option.

Jackson felt responsible for talking him into coming to USC. He also knew that David wasn’t cowed by Dylan, despite Dylan’s remarks about confusing the boy. David wouldn’t be the obedient lapdog his head coach was looking for.

Jackson didn’t have to think too hard to see how this would play out. If David became the backup quarterback, he would start the first game against a weak UNLV team due to Matt’s one-game suspension. USC would handle them easily, and David would look good playing that position. USC’s next game was against a respectable Stanford team in a nationally televised contest. If Matt struggled, they would have a full-blown quarterback controversy.

God forbid they lose the following week at Texas, which was very likely. But, of course, that was also going to be nationally televised. That would make them a below- .500 team and would have everyone clamoring for the guy who had led them to their lone victory.