Junior Year Box Set

I realized during practice that I missed football. I loved baseball, but it simply wasn’t as fast-paced. In football, as the quarterback, you always had a job on each play. In baseball, you might not even get a ball hit to you all game. What I liked the best in baseball was batting and base running. They were both physical and, if you were going to do them well, you had to use your brain. Quarterbacks had to engage both body and mind on every play.

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The quarterbacks rotated through each of the four stations, but the receivers and defensive backs stayed where they were. It gave us a chance to play with all of them. I grinned when we reached the last station and found Wolf, Roc, and Damion Roth, the Odell Beckham Jr. clone who I’d helped get into Wesleyan. If we had Damion on Lincoln’s team, we would be unstoppable.

I’d heard cheers at this station earlier and saw why: it was set up for end-zone plays. I could see the players at this station were sweating up a storm. The grins told me they were having fun, and I wanted in on the game.

The ball was placed on the 10 yard line, and you got three throws before the next quarterback got a turn. I gathered my receivers together, along with the other three quarterbacks so they could listen, and told them what I wanted them to do.

“Wolf, I want you in the center of the field, and do a buttonhook at the two. Roc, go straight up the field and cut across the back of the end zone. Damion, charge hard and cross the goal line, then cut to the sideline.”

To make it hard on us, the defense had five defensive backs. Three lined up in man-to-man while the other two stood three yards in the end zone and split the field between them. On the snap, the extra defensive back on Damion’s side rushed forward to double-team him. He must have burned them to get that kind of attention.

Roc cut right to where that defensive back would have been if he’d stayed home. It was an easy pitch and catch as two defenders chased him. When he caught the ball, he held it up high to show he scored.

“What do you do when you catch a ball in the end zone?” I barked.

Roc gave me a confused look.

“Get on the ground. I don’t want to count on a back judge making the call when you get the ball knocked out of your hands showing off. Good job, but do it like you were taught,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Damion asked.

“The first lesson you’re taught as a defensive back is if you don’t prevent the reception, punch the ball loose. That’s doubly true in the end zone. If they can punch the ball loose, then one of the referees has to determine if you had possession. Coach Mason taught me at the Elite camp in Houston to have your receivers protect the ball and get on the ground. This prevents the defensive backs from getting a chance to steal a score from you,” I coached.

On the next play, I threw to Wolf, who caught the ball, then just turned and fell forward for the score. Damion was next. It wasn’t really fair that they only had two defending him. He simply outleapt them. I was happy to see he covered up and got on the ground before they could try to strip the ball.

Trent and Hack copied what I did and were both smiling when they finished. Gabe had his own plays from Washington. I recognized them from Coach Diamond’s playbook when he was here at Lincoln.

Once all the quarterbacks were done warming up on the four passing drills, they had us do the different footwork and speed drills. I was surprised when it turned out that Hack and Gabe had never done these exercises before, so I had Trent show them what was expected at each station.

Coach Title was lurking behind us, and I got the feeling he was evaluating me. I’d observed coaches for the other three groups actively working with their charges. Instead of working with us himself, it seemed like he wanted to see how I would coach the three players in my group. I had the feeling that if he disagreed with me, he would say something. When practice ended, he just left with the other coaches. I don’t think he said two words all practice.

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For the most part, the camp participants were local. Unlike other camps I’d gone to, they didn’t have dorm rooms for the campers to stay in. The three Elite 11 quarterbacks were talking, so I joined them.

“I thought we were going to get to go head-to-head with you,” Matt Long, the USC commit, said.

“I thought so too. We have a few more days to see who the best is,” I said with a smile. “What’re you guys doing tonight?”

“We were just discussing that. Personally, I’d like to work out and then eat,” Larry Dell, the Elite 11 winner, said.

“I’ve got just the thing for you,” I said with a big grin.

“Why do I think this is going to be a bad idea?” Jaylen Kent, the Maryland commit, asked.

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