The thin cushioning on the seats in the AV room did nothing to ease Ty's aching muscles. Most of the Dons were still settling into their places for the film session ahead of them, gingerly. Coach Long hadn't been joking about their training sessions being more torturous.
There was still an emphasis on run defence with most of their preparation focused on that, to Ty's dismay. However, he got a chance at some pass defence in the back half of the session.
He didn't go against Stephen, Benny, or any of the other Receivers, but a staff member, someone's dad volunteering. The man was six feet or a little over; not as tall as Stephen, but much wider. He would've had a background as a LB in at least high school competition, and whilst he'd let himself go a bit, he was still burly and strong. Apparently, he was the most fitting mimic for the Eagles' best weapon, Joseph Fale.
Ty matched up against the man, at the end of a line of dummies, like he was matching a TE in a real game. Behind the dummies were Rabbit and the backup QB, Tyler—an unassuming boy Tyrese avoided ever since someone made the mistake of calling them Ty-Ty just because they were next to each other.
Ty's assignment was to discern whether the play Tyler and Rabbit ran was a run or a pass. Simple … if the Joseph stand-in wasn't there. Sometimes the man would dart off to the side the moment Tyler called for the snap. An obvious pass, right? But sometimes that obvious pass would be a Draw, and it was Ty's fault for not filling the gap. Other times it was just a pass, and the man used any hesitation to block Ty off on the inside, using a large foam shield, like something out of a kickboxing gym. The man didn't need to catch the pass; Ty failed if he couldn't get a hand on the ball.
Then there were the times it was a run, and the man would lunge forward, shield raised like a bulldozer. If Ty couldn't get around the block and get a hand on Rabbit, he lost. Sometimes Play-Action was sprinkled in, and the man would leave his block after a second, launching into a route instead.
This was Desert Christian's bread and butter, supposedly, and whilst Ty matching Fale wasn't the initial plan, he was their backup. The real Don who'd be guarding Fale was JJ of course, and he was right there with Ty, competing in the same drill in turns.
JJ had better instincts for which play was a Draw or Play-Action, and did better shedding blocks and stopping Rabbit, but even whilst seeing through most deceptions, still struggled with the passes.
Ty thought if they were fresh, and hadn't been run ragged by the first half of practice, they would've done better. But what if Fale had the better gas tank? Unlikely, but Ty would have to keep powering through.
Speaking of that earlier half, before the boys were allowed a break, they'd been punished, with the paper-thin veneer that they were training their tackling and block-shedding.
To start practice, after a set of suicide sprints up the field, they moved onto a simple drill of "Tackle the RB". Only, Coach Norman and Coach Long had those big foam shields out, and their job was to block for the RB. The RB, whether Chris, Cameron, or Rabbit, just had to get a first down. One at a time, the rest of the team was tasked with getting around the blockers.
Coach Long and Coach Norman didn't play by the rules. They used those shields more like weapons, clubbing the boys, tripping them, pinning them to the turf with them. All the while, the RBs scampered away freely.
Any time the tackler failed to stop the RB—which had been pretty much every time—the entire team had to do five burpees, which stacked up quickly. If the RBs were caught, that RB had to do twenty, just to ensure they didn't purposefully get tackled.
After the first round of failures, it only got harder the more exhausted the players became. It didn't take long for the drill to become a hopeless endeavour.
Which was why Ty was thankful they finally got to sit back and relax, no matter how uncomfortable the chairs in the AV room were. Even as others groaned and complained, he relished the moment.
Desert Christian were undefeated. It felt like the Dons faced nothing but undefeated powerhouses at that point, like they were the only team with a single loss next to their name already, let alone two.
The primary source of film came from the Eagles' State championship game, going up against the Arcadia Titans. It didn't take long for Ty to figure out why. The Titans had been an entertaining matchup, on paper. Both teams' star player was like the other—they played both sides of the ball, they were both TEs, and they were both LBs, though the Titans' star was a MLB, whereas Fale was an OLB. Still, they faced off against one another for most of the contest, as Ty saw it. And that was troubling.
Fale was tall, over half a foot taller than Ty. He even would've had an inch or two on JJ, and while his muscles weren't as defined as JJ's, he was a touch broader. Like a huge chunk of iron. Yet even at that size, where he could've been playing as a Lineman, he was still nimble enough to cover the Titans' star, and to run a clean route himself.
Ty glanced across the room at JJ. He trusted JJ; JJ had earned that trust. The game against Denzel and the Bears had proven how strong he was. But that was JJ's element. He was a run-stopper, not a coverage kind of LB. If he was forced to cover Fale, could he keep up? And would the middle of the field hold without its pillar?
The Eagles weren't a one-man team, at least not defensively. For the offence, yes, a lot seemed to hinge on whether Fale could give the other Receivers some extra space, or how effective he was for their run game, but defensively they were an impressive unit.
Fale played a huge role there too—whether blitzing the QB, or dropping back and clogging the passing lanes over the middle of the field—but he had backup. The middle of the D-Line was plugged with a slab of a man that made Fale look small; the Corners were relentless pests, sticking close to their assignments and perpetually bothering them; and the Safeties allowed such play—one was an absolute ballhawk, the type that Coach Hoang dreamed of Ty becoming. If anything was thrown deep without care and precision, or lobbed up lazily, that guy would swallow it.
Ty knew they were in for a low-scoring affair, one that would be decided based on which defensive dam broke first, whether because the foundations collapsed, or the opposing offence finally broke through.
If JJ couldn't guard Fale as a Receiver, the duty would fall to Ty … but Fale was unlike any he'd come against. Sure, he was undersized against Stephen and Kaiser's star Receiver Vance. Even his first game with the Dons had tested him against an Ogre. But none of those names, not even Vance, had the grace and explosiveness of Fale.
Fale's size was deceptive. For all those other names—as good as Vance was—Ty doubted they'd still be on their respective teams if they were five foot nine, but not Fale. He had the skill to back up that size, to make him into a champion. Would that size be the difference Ty couldn't overcome?
Ty thought of Rabbit, how that mouse was even more diminutive, the only player across both JV and varsity who was smaller than himself. Poor Rabbit, talentless and small. All his size went into his heart instead of his legs or muscles. Ty had always been small. His long wingspan was an equaliser of sorts, but he didn't mind being short. He just took it as the football gods acknowledging that everything would've been too easy if he was taller.
Coach Hoang watched Ty. The boy was puzzling it out as he always did. He might not've been good at encapsulating the grander picture, but once he was locked onto a problem, he could isolate it and calculate the weaknesses and strengths like a machine. It was concerning they still had so many struggles.
"Is the gap in talent always that extreme?" But Samuels and the rest of the team had carried them so far. Farther than he'd expected. He'd thought they'd be growing pains, and whilst they had been, he didn't think they'd grow so fast in just one season.
But each test was getting exponentially harder than the last. Sierra Canyon had been strong, and they were lucky Lennox Freeman was only a freshman. He'd be a scary rival in the years to come. Samuels was a freshman too, however, and the Dons had won the State championship because he'd evolved faster than Freeman could.
Joseph Fale was young, only a year older than Samuels, but he was grown. It already felt like he'd evolved to his peak, yet he hadn't reached it, had he? He was just a level above. Only a sophomore but already a man grown. Coach Hoang didn't want to think what the boy would be like in his senior year.
He was scared; every game was scary. This one was different—it was Nationals. Each team they faced would be another champion, someone who'd run the gauntlet of State, and conquered every other team they'd come across.
The Dons had done that too; they were champions in their own right. But Coach Hoang didn't like how they matched up with the Desert Christian Eagles. Jones would get the Fale assignment. Coach Hoang didn't have high hopes, but maybe Jones would surprise him one more time. Jones could be special; they needed him to be special if they wanted to get much further.
Most likely, Samuels would have to stop Fale, though Coach Hoang knew larger opponents—MUCH larger, after all, everyone was larger than Samuels—were a weak spot of his. That and stopping the run, but a CB couldn't be expected to do much there.
Besides, Coach Hoang suspected Jones would be needed to stop that run. Banks and Richardson, they could hold down the Secondary and keep the rest of the Receivers in check; the Eagles weren't a deep-threat team, so Richardson could even play up and help with the run if needed.
None of that would matter if Fale couldn't be stopped. Coach Hoang looked at Ty again—the boy was grinning. He probably didn't even realise it either. He always had a grin like that when he was picturing his enemy's downfall; it made him look psychotic.
Coach Hoang didn't enjoy leaving their fate in the hands of a single player, like they'd done so much this season. Mainly, he wished he didn't feel so useless. He was the Defensive Coordinator; the defence was his charge. "You can only change what you control." People like Samuels and Fale were FAR beyond his control.
Ty rose from his seat when Coach Long called an end to the study. The game was fast approaching, and they all needed to rest up so they could give it their all. Rest was the last thing on Ty's mind as he left the room.
He'd study the film until he fell asleep, burn it into his memory like he always did, so he knew Fale as best he could before the match even started. Before that, he needed to go to the gym. Even as his muscles cried at the thought, he started biking towards Silverback Fitness—he needed to be stronger.
As he pedalled, he couldn't help but notice he hadn't seen Bella at practice.