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[15/06/2021, Stanford stadium, 13:45]
Jace took a deep breath as he walked to the line of scrimmage, scanning the defensive formation. His linemen crouched, hands in the dirt, waiting for the snap. The receivers shifted slightly, checking their alignments one last time. His running back, standing to his right, tapped his thigh pad, signalling he was ready for a blitz pickup if needed.
Across from him, the defence was showing a variation of the cover 2—the safeties sat deep, about 15 yards off the ball, while the cornerbacks played up closer to the line. The linebackers were stacked inside, eyeing the tight end and the running back. But Jace wasn't convinced this was their final setup.
He took a deep breath closing his eyes for a moment throwing every unnecessary thought to the side. Upon reopping his eyes his field of vision narrowed to only the players on the field analysing their most subtle movements. He watched the weak-side linebacker twitch slightly, shifting his weight toward the line just a little too much.
He adjusted the protection at the line, tapping the centre's hip before pointing at the weak-side linebacker. "Mike 52! Mike 52! Check, check!" he barked, signalling to his O-line that they needed to adjust their blocking scheme to account for the blitz. His running back nodded subtly—he'd stay in and help protect.
Everything was set. Jace dropped his hands under the centre and called the cadence. "Blue 80… Blue 80… Set… HUT!" The ball snapped, and everything moved at once.
Jace took a three-step drop, his eyes locked on the slot receiver. Just as he predicted, the defence wasn't actually running Cover 2.
The weak-side safety sprinted forward, abandoning his deep zone to try and jump the quick-out route. The defence had disguised their coverage—they were actually in Cover 3, which meant the deep post route was wide open.
"That's it" he mumbled under his breath before firmly planting his back foot, stepping up into the pocket, and letting it rip.
The ball spiralled through the air, cutting through the heat like a missile. The X receiver, who had been sprinting full speed toward the middle of the field, broke inside at the perfect moment, looking over his shoulder just in time to brace himself as the ball looked to want to pierce through his chest.
Luckily he was wearing pads and was able to react fast enough to make the catch as he followed the momentum of the ball. The safety, realizing his mistake too late, desperately lunged, but the receiver was already ten yards past him. Unwilling to let this chance pass him by the receiver turned on the jets as he secured the ball and exploded forward, his legs churning as he sprinted toward the end zone.
It looked like he would go all the way and with the lack of presence in front of him he thought so too but he was mistaken. One of the cornerbacks had made a sharp U-turn the moment he realised the ball wasn't going his way. From the other side of the field, he chased back like a Cheetah who had locked onto its prey.
His efforts bore fruit as the receiver started to subconsciously slow down as he was gaining speed. By the time the receiver realised and wanted to evade it was already too late. The cornerback jumped forward as the two players collided at the 5-yard line.
Since he came from the side the receiver wasn't sent forward and simply fell along the 5-yard line. Effectively ending the drive. The only consolation was the fact he managed to hold onto the football and thus did not give up possession to their opponents. "Boy you better get that weak ass shi out of here, this is my yard and ain't nothing free." the cornerback exclaimed as he jumped up from the ground as she stood over the downed receiver.
The adrenaline rush from making such a play sent a dose of dopamine to his brain especially since he knew they were being graded for their every performance. So being able to make such a play under all this scrutiny surely boosted his appeal to colleges. A couple of moments later the line of scrimmage had moved up by 65 yards to the five-yard line.
Jace jogged up to the new line of scrimmage, now just five yards away from the end zone. The energy on the field was electric despite this only being a scrimmage at a college combine. The defence which should have been devastated after a monster drive like that was now amped up after the cornerback's touchdown-saving tackle.
It translated into them stopping the next two snaps at the five-yard line frustrating Jace quite a bit. On his first attempt, he went for a running play with his running back, but his O-line suddenly decided to clock off work early. The defenders who were set up in a man-to-man formation not only mange to hold the receivers but two of their linemen managed to overpower the O-line breaking through.
The running back who had just picked up the ball and was exploding forward looking for a gap was immediately bodied by the two linemen. Folks watching from the side even winced in shock as the smaller figure crashed into the two behemoths. Forced to re-group Jace followed their designated coach's suggestion and went for a passing play.
His two receivers were supposed to run in routes meaning they would charge forward five yards and then make a horizontal run to the right. This gave Jace the option to pass to the receiver running in behind the line of scrimmage or the one heading to the side of the field. When it came time for the play, things didn't unfold how they were supposed to.
In layman's terms, both receivers decided to be A$$ at that very moment. Neither of them manged to gain separation from their markers, and to make it worse they were being overpowered. Jace didn't have a long time to think about it though as his O-line was barley holding up this time as they decided to grow a backbone.
One of the opposing outside linebackers managed to break through and tried to go for a sack but he spun out of that situation to his left side as he exited the pocket. He trusted his running back to stop him or at the least be an inconvenience, but the guy was simply stiff-armed and then sidestepped. Now with the guy less than 3 meters ahead of him and seemingly looking for blood, Jace debated whether to scramble away but just then a player wearing his team's green bib blitzed past him.
It was his Left tackle responsible for guarding his blindside but from what Jace could remember he had instructed him to guard the opposing Tight end. However, upon glancing to his left saw the laid-out figure of team ones tightened before hearing a dull boom. His left tackle had hit the linebacker so hard it sounded like a bad car crash; you know the one that make you want to press the rewind in GTA, but you realise it's not Forza.
Jace was only surprised for a second before raising his arm to throw as despite it looking like he was focused on his immediate vicinity, he was gaze never left his receivers. And just when his left tackle decided to send the linebacker to meet his maker his right WR managed to get on the outside of his marker firmly stepping into the endzone. Figuring it was as best as he was going to get Jace sent a soft arcing through over the heads of everyone that looked quite gracefully.
It seemed to peacefully spin in the air at its own time as chaos was still ongoing below it. Cutting a rainbow arc it dropped a couple of steps before the outline on the right side of the endzone right into the path of his WR. It should have been an easy catch, stretch out your hand grasp the ball and score a touchdown, but the WR seemed to be feeling himself a little.
So, channelling his inner Odell he decided to make a one-handed catch, which would have been cool if he succeeded but he did not. It had a lot to do with the throw Jace sent him which carried a lot of spin allowing the ball to trace that arc so accurately, but it also meant that all that force from the spin was focused on the ball's tip. Which again wouldn't have been a problem for a two-handed catch as the WR would have gripped the sides of the ball effectively killing its momentum.
However, this dummy decided the best time to show off was now after barely getting a favourable position from his marker. So, when his gloved hand hit the tip of the descending football it caused it to rebound upward. What followed was the human version of when a cat tries to catch yarn dangled in front of them. In the end, Jace could only watch as his WR made the catch but had already stepped out of bounds by two meters.
"Fine, I'll do it myself!"
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To Be Continued...