None of our strategies work, and as the sun begins to set over the hills of Pasadena, we head to the locker room down 23–7. Halftime is unbearable with the endless chants of Roll, Tide, Roll, giddy performances by both marching bands, and more optimistic banter among my mom, Lucy, Lawton, and Miller. Meanwhile, I try to stay calm and put all my faith in Coach. I remind myself that he does his best work on the ropes, and is back there now, regrouping, reconfiguring, and reinvigorating our troops. Telling them that it’s now or never.
And then the second and final half of the college football season begins under a vibrant teal sky that I can’t resist pointing out to Lucy. “I know!” she says, staring up at it, her hand over her heart and the gold pin we are all wearing in memory of her mother. “I was just thinking the same thing. It’s amazing … I’ve never seen a sky like this before.”
One beat later, we nail a thirty-one-yard pass to the Bama forty-nine-yard line.
“Yeah! Fuck, yeah! That’s more like it!” Miller yells, pumping his fist in the air, then high-fiving Lawton.
I clap for the first time all night, as we go deep once again, covering another twenty-five yards to our backup wide receiver. Coach definitely has the Tide off balance with his hurry-up offense, and I watch with satisfaction as they begin shuffling personnel to try to contain the sudden explosion. On the next play, they focus on our deep threat, but we mix things up, rushing to the line and calling an audible before Everclear takes the ball sixteen yards on a bootleg.
I turn and shout, “Your dad’s a friggin’ genius!” at Lucy and Lawton.
On second down, Everclear fakes to Rhodes and connects with our tight end in the back of the end zone. There it is. Touchdown! In one minute and twelve seconds of flawless execution, we are back in the hunt. As Mike Green, our kicker, nails the extra point, I crack a small smile and high-five Miller.
On the ensuing possession, we load the box and blitz, looking much more confident on defense, too. Alabama is still able to convert a couple first downs, but the drive proves ultimately unfruitful as they punt from midfield, pinning us deep in our own territory. Coach plays it more conservatively from there, and the remainder of the third quarter becomes a battle for field position with an exchange of field goals.
“All right! All right, boys!” Miller shouts as we begin the fourth quarter with the ball on our twelve. “We’ll take it!”
I stare at the scoreboard, even though I have the 26–17 score emblazoned in my mind, telling myself it is entirely possible to erase a nine-point deficit in the final quarter of play. Over the next six and half minutes, we capitalize on a fatigued Bama defense by relentlessly attacking the line of scrimmage, only to be stopped short on the five-yard line. But Green nails another field goal, closing the gap to six with eight minutes and change remaining.
Alabama does us no favors on their next series, grinding out yards and ticking off seconds in a sustained drive that forces us to burn two time-outs. We manage to shut them down on a fourth and long, but by now they are on our fifteen, in easy field goal range for any kicker, let alone one who has been perfect on the night.
I drop my head to my hands, a gesture that alarms Lucy. “What?” she demands, jabbing me in the back. “Why are you doing that?”
I break it down for her. “They’re going to make this kick. Then we’ll be down nine—which is a two-possession game. And we only have one time-out left.”
“Which means?” Lucy asks.
“Which means we don’t have fucking time to win,” Miller says, finally exasperated with her, too.
“But he has to make the field goal first, right?” she asks.
“He hasn’t missed yet,” Lawton says, as the players line up on the field.
I drop my face to my hands again, unable to watch the inevitable, but a few seconds later, Miller grabs my arm and starts yelling, “He hooked it! He hooked it! He fuckin’ hooked it!”
I look up to see the Walker offense taking the field. “He missed it?” I say, with a shocked sputter of laughter.
“He fuckin’ missed it!” Miller crows.
“Choke city!” Lawton chimes in.
“Now can we win?” Lucy yells over the din. She definitely has a mental block when it comes to basic football math.
“Now we have a shot!” I tell her, then break it down for her, explaining that all we have to do is cover eighty-five yards in one hundred and ninety seconds. It is plenty of time; it is almost too much time, because the last thing we want is for Alabama to have the final possession.
I turn my gaze back to the field as Coach begins to drain the clock with running plays and short passes, working his way to midfield while using up a minute and forty seconds. After that, we break into our two-minute offense, starting with a very long pass that Rhodes can’t quite reach. Incompletion. On second down, Coach goes deep again, but this time it works, putting us on the Alabama thirty-two.