Junior Year Box Set

Jake headed the same direction Ty was going. I tossed Ty a little shovel pass, a short pass in the backfield close to the line of scrimmage. I sprinted to try and get into position to help Ty if I could. Jake helped Neil, our right tackle, block their defensive end. Ty ran wide to allow Wolf a chance to block their cornerback on that side. I tracked down their linebacker on that side, and Wolf and I made our blocks at about the same time. All Ty had to do was get past their safety. From my position, sprawled on the field, I saw Ty high-step like Walter Payton used to do with the Chicago Bears. That slowed him down, and I was cursing him in my head when, out of nowhere, Jim showed up to the party and buried their safety.

You often see spectacular blocks on punt returns because the defense is focused on the ball carrier. I was thankful to see the safety turned into Jim as Ty made a move, or it would have been a clip. Jim hit him with his shoulder right in the middle of the poor kid’s chest. Jim’s hit actually lifted the kid off the ground and sent him flying. We would watch that block in next week’s game film again and again. Ty knew exactly what to do from there, and no one on Bloomington had the speed to catch him. We were up 14–0, and I was 2–2 and 189 passing yards with only five minutes gone in the first half.

Bloomington proved that they were a good team the next series and drove the football eighty yards to score.

‘BLAAAMM!’

I about had a heart attack when they set off a cannon when they scored. That was a heck of a lot louder than cowbells. I could imagine the Booster Club going out to get one for our next game.

Neither defense seemed to be able to stop the other for the rest of the half. Coach Mason, my quarterback coach at camp and former Oakland Raider coach, would have loved our offense. He believed in stretching the defense with the long ball. Wolf, Jake, and Ed all caught long touchdown passes. At halftime, we were up 35–21. I would bet Bloomington now wished they got the football first in the second half.

During halftime, Alan found me, and he was really excited.

“You have a shot at setting a national single-game record for passing yards.”

“Okay, I’ll play along. How many yards is the record?” I asked.

“Will Grier, who’s now on Florida’s roster, threw for 837 yards in a game his junior year.”

“Holy crap! That’s more than many quarterbacks throw in a year,” I said, and then wondered why Alan was excited. “How many have I thrown for so far?”

“423!”

“No way,” I said.

“Way! We don’t have a single rushing yard. We’ve done it all passing,” Alan told me.

“Don’t tell anyone. There’s no way we’ll pick up over 400 more yards in the second half,” I predicted.

I just shook my head and realized we were putting on a pretty good show for the recruiters if we put up those kinds of numbers. I did a little quick math, and we’d had to gain over 84 yards a possession to reach 423. I thought back and realized Bloomington’s kicking teams had never given us a break on field position. I surely wasn’t going to focus on that. We still had a game to win.

I was proven wrong. The second half was a wild shootout. I threw my first interception on the opening drive, which turned into a pick-six. Then Bloomington kicked a short kick to avoid Ty and Ed. Bert got walloped and fumbled the ball to them. Bloomington decided to throw the ball and quickly scored again to tie it at 35–all.

We were up 77–70 with under three minutes to go and Bloomington in possession of the football when the officials stopped the game. I thought someone had called a time out when there was an announcement over the PA system.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have all been privileged to witness history today! Lincoln High’s David Dawson has just set the national single-game passing record with 848 yards!”

I thought I was going to go deaf from the cowbells. I was presented with a football. This was my worst nightmare. As hard as I try to keep the focus on the team, I go and do something like this. It really did take a team to put up that kind of offense. Plus, we needed a lot of luck. I trotted over to Coach Zoon after I handed the football to Alan for safekeeping.

“Put me in, Coach. Let’s end this and go home with a victory.”

He sent me in to play safety. Our defense finally stiffened, and Mike picked off a pass to end it. Coach Hope put in my backup, Trent Buchannan, and let our running backs loose. By now Bloomington’s defensive line was too tired from chasing me all night to stop them. We were able to run out the clock, and it was Miller Time. Of course, that’s just a figure of speech, since I didn’t drink in season.

After the game, Alan showed me the stats. I had thrown the football 89 times and completed 76. That was simply insane. The sad part was we needed every bit of it. Our defense had to improve because there was no way we would ever have a game like today again.

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