Junior Year Box Set

The play Coach Diamond called was to have Mike go into motion and line up behind Roc, and then Ed would go into motion right before the snap and end up behind Ty. This put four receivers on the left side of the football and left Wolf all alone on the right. With the stacked receivers, it was harder for Washington to cover them as we flooded the zone.

The hope was that Ty and Ed would be covered by linebackers and could use their superior speed. Washington had come out in their base defense because they expected me to just kneel down. If they had thought that we were going for it, they would have had more defensive backs on the field.

On the snap, Ed was at full speed and cut straight upfield. I hit him five yards down the field, and he used his speed to pick up enough for the first down. I sprinted to the line and called the same play. Washington was caught with too many men on the field on the snap as they tried to swap out a linebacker with a defensive back. Unfortunately for us, Wolf dropped the pass.

We were on the 50 yard line after the penalty, with fourteen seconds left. Coach Diamond swapped out Mike and Ed and brought in Jake and Bert to give us fresh legs. When we got into the huddle, I shared my plan.

“We need to pick up twenty-plus yards to give our kicker a chance. I’d feel better with thirty. Now let’s go get it done.”

The next play was intended to pick up ten yards and relied on Wolf being one-on-one with a smaller defensive back. Washington was smart because as soon as the pass was targeted at Wolf, they tackled him. I just threw the ball out of bounds. It was better for them to take a fifteen-yard penalty than to allow our best receiver a chance to score. The play had only consumed four seconds. We were now on their thirty-five with ten seconds left. With the timeout, we could get off one, maybe two, more plays.

On the next play, Washington blitzed, and I was blindsided, though I managed to hold on to the football. Coach Hope ran onto the field to get the timeout called. We only had three seconds left, and we were out of field goal range. The discussion on the sidelines was brief. We had nothing to lose by going for it, so Coach Diamond called for the Hail Mary, where all the receivers would head for the end zone.

When we lined up to run the play, Washington only had three linemen to rush. That meant they had eight defensive backs in the game. My five receivers would all be covered, and they would have three more to stand in the end zone and prevent the score.

On the snap, I dropped back and was surprised when Washington ran a line stunt, and one of their down linemen flushed me from the pocket. Everyone was covered, so I rolled right and was almost to the line of scrimmage, having half-decided to just run it and see what happened. Then I saw Roc cut hard at the 10 yard line and get some separation. I threw the ball towards the goal line.

That was when Washington made their mistake. They bunched their defenders behind him. We’d been taught to have someone in front as well to make it much harder. If they had done that, the chances of Roc catching the ball would have gone down considerably. It would have forced the football version of a jump ball. Roc caught the ball on the 2 yard line and lunged for the goal line. He was hit, and I saw him reach for the score when the ball was knocked loose. The crowd for each team went nuts, thinking we had either been stopped or we had scored.

One line judge held his hands up, and the other made no indication. The referee got all the officials together and discussed it. I would later see on TV that Roc hadn’t scored. The Washington defender had knocked the football out of his hands six inches from the goal line. It was a good thing there was no review allowed in high school because the referee stepped out of the huddle and indicated touchdown! We had won 40–34.

Washington was not happy. They refused to shake hands after the game and ran into the locker room. I was surprised at their lack of sportsmanship.

Fox Sports caught me before I got off the field. I smiled when someone put on the song Our House over the stadium PA.

“How does it feel to win a game in that fashion?” the reporter asked.

I hated questions like that. It felt great! I timed my response for when the song hit the chorus of Our House.

“They came into Our House, and we took care of business. We have a long way to go, though. I’m sure we’ll work hard this week and fix everything that went wrong.”

I was swarmed by my teammates, and the reporter gave up trying to interview me. The locker room was a madhouse. You would have thought we had won State. They started chanting “Our House” until Coach Hope quieted us down.

“Good game! The game ball was easy to decide tonight. We put the game in his hands, and he delivered: David Dawson,” Coach Hope announced as he handed me a football.