QB 1 Read Free Page A

shared the quarterback’s job on the eighth grade team until halfway through the season, when he had made enough plays to take his team to the district championship game, where Granger had lost to Lovett.
    That and his last name were enough to put his name last on the depth chart at quarterback now.
    â€œYou think I’m better than I really am,” Jake said to Nate. “Like you think that’s part of being my best friend.”
    Nate leaned closer to Jake, lowering his voice.
    â€œGonna tell you a little somethin’ here,” Nate said. “Our senior quarterback ain’t getting it done this year. Don’t want to sound like a bad teammate, you know I’m not. But he ain’t the answer. And the transfer, walks around like he’s such a hotshot? He ain’t as good as he thinks he is. It’s why you got to make every snap count when we scrimmage. Open their eyes and make them see, dude.”
    â€œIsn’t that what that laser surgery is for?” Jake said.
    â€œFunny how the ball ends up where it’s s’posed to and when it’s s’posed to,” Nate said. “You think your arm’s your problem. It’s your brain.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with my mind?”
    â€œYou want the truth?”
    â€œYes, please give me the truth, big man, so I don’t have to beat it out of you in front of the whole team.”
    â€œYou just haven’t figured out you’re the Eli Manning of your family.”
    â€œEli’s a freak.”
    â€œWell then,” Nate said, sitting up, hearing the same whistle from Coach McCoy they all did, “time to get your freak on, boy.”
    â€œYou’re an idiot, you know that, right?”
    â€œNah,” Nate said, “but I do snap the ball to one sometimes.”
    The two of them stood up, put their helmets back on, started walking back toward the newly painted white lines and brand-new turf of Cullen Field.
    â€œI’m telling you straight up,” Nate said. “It’s up to you to make them
see
what you got.”
    Jake thought to himself, and not for the first time:
    How do I do that when I still don’t see it in myself?

03
    EACH OF GRANGER’S THREE QUARTERBACKS WOULD GET ONE series today, one crack each at the first-string defense, a chance to start at the twenty and see if they could take the ball all the way down the field.
    Soon as they didn’t make a first down, or turned it over, it was next man up.
    Tim Mathers went first and was shaky at the start, nerves already an issue with him even though he’d practically been handed the job. Jake had seen it when they’d started scrimmaging at the end of last week.
    Jake watched Tim, thinking this poor guy wasn’t the only one worried about the reach of Wyatt Cullen’s long shadow.
    But Tim settled down after a couple of bad throws, moved the offense past midfield, looked like he might go all the way until he telegraphed a deep sideline throw to Calvin, eyes locked on him the entire time, the ball intercepted by the Cowboys’ best corner—maybe best in the state this season—Ollie Gray, who had already committed to LSU for next year. Ollie had run with Calvin step for step all the way, turned back for the ball at exactly the right moment, caught it in stride inside the ten-yard line, as if he was the one who’d been Tim Mathers’s intended receiver all along.
    Casey Lindell’s turn.
    Casey looked old enough to be in college already, same height as Jake and easily weighing twenty more pounds. He had a rocket for an arm, had even started for his high school team in San Antonio since he was a freshman. But his parents had gotten divorced and his mom, who was from Granger, had moved back to her hometown with her three kids. Casey didn’t seem too worried about the move, or about Tim Mathers being the starter, at least for now. He was a cocky kid, not coming out and saying it but