I Hate Football Players 3 | 18+

Chapter 65: Logan

"You got it," Darrius and Reese both grunted out, Darrius from exhaustion and Reese more with the same frustration Seth and Wes still looked at me with.

The Arizona fans started out the game in a ruckus, which slowly subdued into bursts of anxious, impatient rounds of cheers throughout the first half of the game. I wanted us headed into the locker room for halftime while the Wildcat fans sat on their hands.

"If you think we'll score before halftime," Seth grumbled before we broke the huddle. I just shook my head since we had eight minutes left in the first half of a still scoreless game.

"Sell it." I snapped at him, then pointed at the line of scrimmage. "T I right!"

Like a textbook play, I set the offense into an "tight I" formation, where my center Zander lined up in between me and four offensive linemen stacked shoulder to shoulder, with Darrius on the inside-left. For the bottom of the "I," Kade lined up behind me as a fullback next to my runningback Jamal. Despite Wes and Seth's dirty looks over their shoulders at me since they knew they were on decoy duty again, I split my receivers wide on each side and stacked Reese the tight end wide on the offensive line for an extra blocker.

Once Zander snapped the ball back to me, a snarled clash of grunts and shoves erupted on the line, during which Darrius lightened up slightly against his defensive end. Since Darrius faked being overpowered, his Arizona opponent believed he controlled the line of scrimmage play. After the defender's let up, Darrius surged forward like a bull, grabbed onto the guard's shoulders, and shoved him hard.

Within a stumbled step, Darrius plowed the defender out to the right. Combined with a block on the extra linebacker from Reese and whatever dancing sales pitch Wes performed that drew the safeties' attention to the left side of the field towards him, Kade had a clear path on the right side.

A short, stocky guy, Kade had the muscle but lacked the speed of both our runningbacks. Darrius did his job so a peewee player could've run forwards, and, fifteen yards later, we faced first and goal. With one quick glance at the defensive set up, where the fourth linebacker roamed a few steps sideways on my right side, I went with my instinct.

Feel like a zone blitz is coming. Ballsy.

Catch me first.

"Brooks, ZB tight!" I pointed Seth next to my center Zander in an indirect command that I needed an extra tight end blocker on the right side. Seth gave me a narrow-eyed look on his trot towards the position, but took his spot on the line of scrimmage as an extra tight end instead of a receiver.

Don't complain, you're at least in this play.

First step right off the snap, I knew I was right. The linebackers on my right side pressed into my offensive tackles, but I'd stacked them up with Reese and Seth for pass protection. My eyes skimmed around the field and found single coverage, just one safety on Wes. I ran right, drew the defenders, then pitched the ball across the field to the left.

I drew in a sharp breath at the clean, smooth spiral that arced towards the left corner of the endzone. Wes got a jump up early on the safety, easily tucked the ball right into his number eleven, and kept it on the downward crash from the safety's tackle.

Right when I took one step in Wes' direction, a blunt force charged right into my chest. The linebacker I'd outran took offense to his failure and shoved me backwards onto the turf.

My head snapped slightly from the contact of my helmet flat down and the early night sky, faintly dotted with white stars, blurred for a moment. A ring pierced my ears, then slowly faded out to shrill whistles, grunts, and streams of profanity that surrounded me while I sat up.