He let what he’d told us settle in. I wondered what he planned.
“Based on what I’ve found, the coaching staff has decided to make some changes. First, we will start onside-kicking for every kickoff. This is something that most teams never practice for. If they see they have to defend for it in the playoffs, it’ll take away part of their practice time to game-plan,” he said.
Holy cow, was he serious? I looked around to see if we were being punked. Jeff Delahey and his camera crew were filming as usual, but he didn’t look like he was in on a prank.
“Second, we will seldom punt on fourth down because the chance to run four downs worth of plays is more valuable than field position. Third, with plays where at least three players touch the ball, the chance for an explosive play of 20 yards or more actually doubles. Bo’s research also revealed that if you can account for more explosive plays of 20 yards or more than your opponent, you win 81% of the time.”
That caught my full attention. Suddenly a smile appeared on my face. I hated it when we had to punt. I always felt that I could get us the yardage if given another chance. And I liked the idea of more players touching the ball.
“Finally, we will blitz more often because sacks change the game more than allowing first downs,” Coach Stevens concluded.
I glanced over at Tim and Yuri, and they both had big grins on their faces. Coach Hope took the floor.
“Coach Stevens did a good job of laying out the facts for the coaching staff. I debated whether we would try this or not this year. Coach Stevens convinced me that we would need to prepare for it, and we’d see how it worked next year. Then I saw this,” he said and started the video of our next opponent, Broadview Academy.
The first video he pulled up was a local newscast showing what they’d said about the upcoming game in St. Louis. Their star defensive end, Percy Wilkes, was interviewed.
“I think we can run the table. We view the game in St. Louis as a warm-up for the playoffs.”
“What do you think of Lincoln High? Doesn’t their offense worry you?” the off-camera reporter asked.
“Everyone knows that Texas football is better than anywhere else; it’s just a fact. Lincoln High would have a hard time beating anyone in our league. It’s a whole different class of football. It’s a shame, really. They’ll try to ride our coattails to relevance. It’s a shame that ESPN didn’t feature two Texas teams in this game. If we played Trinity, Lake Travis, or Allen … now that would be a game worth watching. Compared to them, Lincoln High is irrelevant.”
Irrelevant? That made the Alpha Male in me take notice. It seemed to have a similar effect on my teammates. This was precisely why I was careful to say only good things about an opponent. You didn’t need to give them further motivation to kick your butt. Coach Hope smiled at our collective reaction.
“I thought that might get you riled up. Now I want to show you what will happen if we don’t execute.”
He turned on the video of Broadview on defense. On the snap, the opposing quarterback dropped back to pass. We watched in horror as Broadview’s defensive end, who I assumed was Percy Wilkes, simply tossed their offensive tackle to the ground and sprinted full speed to tackle the quarterback. Most times, you will see the defender wrap a player around the waist and bring them down. But in this case, Broadview’s defensive end dwarfed the opponent’s quarterback. It looked like an adult playing against a middle-schooler. I would later find out that Percy was six-seven and 270 pounds. The best way to describe what happened was Percy engulfed the quarterback, who disappeared from view and then suddenly was slammed to the turf.
Oh, my God! Coach Hope had three other clips with similar endings. I glanced over at Trent, who looked like he’d eaten something nasty.
“You know, I’m still hurt,” I teased him.
I think he threw up in his mouth on that one. His reaction made everyone laugh nervously.
“We’ve seen enough video,” Coach Hope said because he knew he had our full attention.
I now understood Percy’s swagger. You could get away with providing your opponent poster-board material if you could back it up like that. I also realized why Coach Hope decided to change things up. We would need turnovers if we expected to beat Broadview Academy.
We ran out onto the field in shorts and t-shirts. Coach Mason had a new play drawn up, a pass play that featured Trent and my brother Phil. They both had practiced at quarterback and were skilled at running the option. The whole concept was taken from rugby. Instead of our receivers rushing to block someone after a catch, they would work to find an open spot in the defense where they could accept a pitch.
