Practice

Practice started well, the coaches introduced themselves and did a bunch of introductory stuff for the season before getting into some conditioning and installing some formations and plays. One interesting thing did happen: Alex Beard, the backup quarterback, was called away by the Athletic Director early on into practice and hadn't returned. It meant you took second-team reps in drills and would be in the upcoming team period, which you made sure to take advantage of.

You sat there watching the first team go for a bit, taking in everything, trying to soak in what they were doing and reading the defence. Suddenly, on a routine passing play, the o-line got caved in, Lloyd tried to throw a ball and, after he released it, yelled, "FUCKKKK!!" He immediately grabbed his hand, and you knew what had happened: he'd hit his fingers on the lineman's helmet.

He quickly ran off towards the doctors on the field, and immediately Coach Johnson yelled, "Palmer get in there."

You threw on your helmet and ran into the huddle, and quickly got the signal from the coach. He called a run play, likely to ease you into your first snap of college football, even in practice. He called a few runs and a few screens to start, and you felt good, everything was going smoothly, even if it was easy stuff.

Finally, he put some proper passing plays your way, nothing complicated, but enough to get your feet wet. Everything was feeling good; your arm felt good, and you were making accurate throws and making the right reads. Your confidence was slowly growing, and you could see you were making a good impression on your teammates and coaches. You just knew they were thinking, "Maybe this guy still has it, maybe he still is a 5-star talent, and West Shore could actually contend for a conference title."

You got the next play: Shark Right Tight gun, 30 boot Banger. Assuming you read it right, you saw the X receiver was going to have a one-on-one matchup on a go against the blitz with no safety help. You adjusted the line to account for that and started your cadence, "Red Eight Red Eight, Set Hut," and you watched the defence do exactly what you read and come at you. Your X receiver had him by a step, and this was the time for you to shine and show you deserved more than to be just the 3rd string quarterback. You stepped up and launched a shot that should lead your receiver perfectly with all your strength on it. You felt a slight pain in your shoulder when it happened, but nothing too bad to worry about. The ball was starting to come down, and the receiver stopped, the ball had fallen 5 yards in front of him and was easily picked off by the trailing defender. You had done everything right on the play, made the correct read, and adjusted the line, but it wasn't enough your arm didn't have the strength anymore to make a throw like that. That's when practice started to unravel for you a bit; you attempted some throws that you previously would have been able to throw but just no longer had the requisite arm strength for. While not a bad team period for you, it plainly showed your limitations as a QB for this team.

As you walked off the field at the end of practice, you were called over by Coach Johnson. "Hey Jake, that was a good practice, I know you missed some throws at the end, but you were making the right reads."

"Thanks coach," you say, trying to fake some enthusiasm, but you expect better of yourself.

"Well, I've got some news, good news or bad news, depending on how you look at it. Unfortunately, Alex is going to be suspended for the season as he was found by the NCAA to have been placing bets on college football games. As well, Lloyd's injury on that throw we think to be a broken finger, which could potentially keep him out of a few games to start the year. That would mean you would take the role of starting QB for the time being. You up for the challenge?" Coach said. And you got extremely excited, you were now being given this opportunity, and you were going to be able to prove yourself on gameday in college football. A moment that seemed so far away not that long ago. One other thing you knew was starting quarterbacks of college football teams got lots of hot girls, and you weren't going to waste this moment. You could envision yourself being king of this school and fucking all the girls in it.

"Yes coach," you say very enthusiastically, forgetting about how practice ended.

"Good, now you're going to need to spend a lot more time going over the playbook, watching film as we're going to have to rely on you to lead us to victory a week from today," coach said.

"Of course coach, I won't let you down," you say.