Page 17 of Campus Heat

I opened my mouth to question his line of thought, but got lost in my own questions, so I closed it again. Lucas gave me a look, and all I could picture was him silently asking me if I was actually hearing this madness.

“Dylan takes it right back,” Harris continued, drawing his idea out in the air. “The defense collapses. Then Dylan laterals back to Ethan, who’s trailing. Then we attack the opposite edge. It’s beautiful and fluid.”

“It’s illegal,” someone muttered.

“It’s not illegal,” I whispered. “It’s just… risky.”

Harris clapped. “Risk is where growth happens.”

“Let’s try it and see,” I said, hoping he’d get the point once we failed.

We lined up for the first rep. There was a snap. I handed it off to Dylan, sweeping right. The defense flowed that way immediately, but Dylan hesitated.

“When?” he shouted.

“Now!” Harris responded.

Dylan panicked, and threw the ball backward instead of across. I wasn’t in position yet, so the ball hit empty turf. After that, it was just chaotic. Malik scooped it up and rumbled fifteen yards before anyone touched him. The whistle blew, and we retreated.

“Okay! Okay! That was okay. The only problem we had was timing,” Harris said.

I rubbed my temples hoping it would ease the killer headache that had been spreading since he’d started talking.

We went out for the second rep, and landed the snap then the hand-off. I sprinted behind Dylan this time, staying closer to him than before.

He pitched it back, and the move was cleaner. For half a second, it actually looked like a workable play. But then things took a turn. The defensive end hadn’t over-committed. In fact, he stayed home and met me the instant the ball touched my hands.

With a helmet to the shoulder, I went down hard. The ball shot out of my grip yet again, and groans could be heard all over the field.

Lucas jogged over. “We’re not the Warriors. This isn’t poetry.”

Harris clapped like we missed a shot at the buzzer.

“That’s the look! That’s the look! We just need cleaner spacing,” he said.

“It’s football,” the center said. “There is no spacing.”

I rolled onto my back, and stared up at the bleachers. Elizabeth was the first thing that came into my view, and I realized that the cheerleaders had been watching us the whole time. As if I weren’t embarrassed enough. Of all the things I wanted her to see, our failure was bottom of the list.

“You good?” Lucas asked as he offered me a hand.

“Yeah,” I groaned.

He gave me a concerned look. “You sure?”

I nodded, not knowing what else to say.

Lucas leaned in. “We’re not built for this.”

He looked across the field and turned pale. Harris was already resetting the formation, but I couldn’t take any more of his eccentric calls. I didn’t think anyone could. So I got up, dusted the grass from my palms, and headed over to him.

“Coach, I’m going to call it. We can’t keep going like this. You’re not motivating the guys. You’re making it worse,” I said as I reached him.

“Yeah, I honestly don’t know if I want to be on this team anymore,” Lucas said, running up behind me to add his two cents.

“Do you know how embarrassed we were during the last game?” Dylan muttered. “Obviously none of us are cut out for this. If we were, we’d have some kind of idea about what we’re doing.”

The other players joined the discussion, sharing their embarrassment, discomfort, and doubts. The problem was that they were all talking over each other. Only certain words stood out, and they weren’t the words Coach wanted to hear.