Monica: Hey Coach, it’s Monica.

Yeah.

No, still nothing. He keeps saying it was in a chest of some kind, like a treasure chest.

Well I don’t know what’s the difference between a regular chest and a treasure chest, besides the treasure.

Yeah ... I know.

I’m not sure. UCLA’s asking for an extension, though. They want us here three more days.

I don’t know. Of course, we can’t know for sure. He might be fucking with us, but he seems, like, obsessed with this. Like he just knows the ball is in there somewhere.

Yeah.

Well listen, here’s what I think. I think he really does believe the ball is there. I also think … we’ve been here searching for a week and the search area is about 28 acres. That’s really not that big. There are 20 of us looking. We would have found it.

Okay.

No, I’m good with that. I’ll let ‘em know.

Yep. Bye.

LTech Player: What’d she say?

Monica: No extension. We gotta pack up at the end of the day.

LTech Player: Yeah, I think we’re wasting our time here.

Did she tell you about the scoreboard?

Monica: No, what?

LTech Player: We moved up in the rankings. Look, this was just a minute ago.

Monica: Whoooaa! We’re number 13, baby!

LTech Player: Looks like Georgia had a little accident. Wonder what the hell just happened out there.

Monica: Don’t know, don’t care.

LTech Player: We’re tied with a million other teams. And I bet the rest of them actually know where their damn football is.

Monica: Hey, 13 is 13.

LTech Player: Yeah, we gotta celebrate.

Maybe we could rent a private party up at that bar in Pryor Creek.

Monica: Yeah, but you know the field only runs along the indoor part of the bar. I wanna sit outside somewhere.

LTech Player: Could go up to Hardy.

Monica: Hardy, Nebraska?

LTech Player: Yeah, I think that’s the nearest bar if we keep going north. I don’t know, we’ll see what Coach thinks about it.

Monica: Anyway. Gonna go break the news to Grumpy.

LTech Player: Ha, not Grumpy. You don’t have to call him that.

Monica: I mean! We’ve been around the dude for a week and all he does is mope around.

LTech Player: If I fumbled, I might too.

Monica: It was 63 years ago. Whatever, I’m gonna head up there, I’ll be back. Where’s he at?

LTech Player: He was about at the 490,000, last I saw him.

Monica: All right, I’ll be back.

Monica: Hey Chuck.

Chuck: Hey.

Monica: You see the scoreboard?

Chuck: Nah, you know, I was uh …

You know, still lookin’.

Monica: Georgia lost a football. This was just a few minutes ago.

Chuck: No foolin’? Someone else pick it up?

Monica: Not as far as we can tell.

Chuck: Well, what you wanna do now is … how long you been playing?

Monica: About 300 years.

Chuck: Well, some of you newer players haven’t necessarily seen something like this, but it’s happened a few times where some poor sucker just airmailed the ball onto a boat or something like that. And that boat just goes on down the lake, none the wiser!

Monica: Oh wow.

Chuck: Yeah, so you folks look and see. What you wanna do now is watch to see if there’s any blips on the scoreboard. If you see a team pop up and back down, you can bet your hat that’s what happened. Just a boat passing through their field.

Now if the score pops up and down real fast? That’s something faster, maybe a dump truck or something like that. There was actually a story once about a hawk come and picked up the ball, flew a hundred miles. Ha! I don’t think that’s true, though.

Juice: yeah that never happened

Ten: This is fun! It’s fun to see when opposing players are pals.

Juice: me too. it’s actually not too uncommon to see this. kinda depends on the program’s culture, really. some schools are hellbent on victory, some are a lot more chill

Ten: Where do these teams fall on that spectrum?

Juice: well, Louisiana Tech and UCLA are both kinda bottom feeders these days. not a lot of depth, lots of newer players with less experience. i mean both programs take the game serious, but they’re still a few centuries away from relevance and they seem to know that

but

and fingers crossed here

they may be about to deliver us something crazy

see, Louisiana Tech and UCLA do not have an alliance with each other. that’s not what they’re doin here.

storytime?

Nine: Always.

Juice: storytime.

it’s 63 years ago. the year is 19957.

then, as now, UCLA had zero footballs. like a lot of other goose-egg teams without any particularly great ideas, they decided to send out five squads of 20 to kinda just roam around the country. they go on patrols, pick up whatever intelligence they can, and hope they get lucky

one of these squads is down in texas, marching up the Kansas field just outside of Tyler, Texas. one day they run into a Texas A&M team with a football they’re tryin to bring home. this team has 28 players, outnumbering UCLA by a few, but hey it’s enough to play some football

Nine: Whoooooa, what is this?

Juice: this is known as the “castle keep” formation. it alludes to the inner keeps medieval lords would build inside their castles, naturally

Nine: Gimme a second with this. I haven’t had nearly as much time as you guys have to study up on the game. I mean I’m still trying to read up on the West Coast offense of the 1980s.

Juice: lol you are younger than hell

Nine: I’m older than both of you!

Juice: lol you old as hell

Ten: It’s officially known as the “castle keep” offense, but I and a lot of others prefer to call it the “throw pillow” offense. It’s bloated and overcrowded.

Imagine the triple option, except instead of a ball carrier, every option is an extra offense. Upon taking the snap, the quarterback can drop back and make her reads as usual, or she can pitch it back to her second or third quarterback.

This offense briefly came into vogue around the 90th century. Problem is, it overcomplicates things for you a lot more than it does for your opponent. It’s for advanced offensive thinkers only. In lesser hands, it’s a mess.

Juice: yeahhh that was the case here

the thing about the modern college game is that it’s mostly made up of running around the country trying to get to the ball. you could very well go a long long long time without ever taking a snap. tough to retain play calling discipline. more often than not, it’s probably in your best interests to keep it simple

but these are human beings, and human beings love playing with their toys

it’s 1st and 10. the quarterback pitches it back to the second quarterback on the left side, who doesn’t catch it cleanly. he just chucks it out of bounds, damn near gets an intentional grounding penalty

2nd and 10. this time they draw up nine verts: four wide receivers, the tight end, and both running backs from both auxiliary offenses. all streak downfield.

Juice: but, as is common practice, UCLA has stationed three of its safeties way upfield to play prevent. with the help of that little line of trees, they successfully break it up. complete lack of imagination from A&M here and they paid for it

all of a sudden it’s 3rd and 10. now, if you turn the ball over on downs, it’s not really the end of the world, right? UCLA would get the ball but you still outnumber them, you can most likely stop em and get it back

but A&M is trying to get the hell out of dodge. they’re tired and it’s getting late. they wanna make one huge gain that lets em streak miles downfield and get this overwith

so they call nine verts AGAIN

Nine: This sucks!

They need to ditch this offense. You outnumber them, you don’t need to try any misdirection or obscure your intent. Just beat ‘em up.

Juice: i agree with you. and coincidentally, so does fate

this is where Chuck comes in.

Juice: Chuck’s a terrific player whose talents as a defensive end have been wasted on the ucla bruins. this is the first time he’s even had a sniff at scrimmage football in hundreds of years. this is his big chance

and as one of the de facto leaders of this squad, it’s his turn to call his defense’s next play. he calls everyone’s favorite:

zero blitz.

Ten: FUCK YEAH

Nine: Whoa.

Juice: jesus ok

Ten: It’s my favorite. I’m sorry. If you pull the trigger at the right time, sending your entire team on a blitz is effective and it’s beautiful.

Juice: lady you’re gonna love this. because this isn’t just a zero blitz, it’s a targeted zero blitz

Chuck is pushing all his chips in here. he believes that the third quarterback is gonna ask to make a throw, since he hasn’t yet. so UCLA decides they’re gonna bum-rush the west side of the field

his guess is absolutely right. UCLA’s line shifts west. their safeties creep up to the line just before the snap, then flood the west side of the field. A&M’s third o-line is just eaten alive. the third quarterback tries to escape the pocket

but Chuck is all over him.

Juice: Chuck balls up a fist, lunges at him, and punches the ball right out of his elbow. gorgeous technique. it’s the first time he’s touched the ball in centuries. he stumbles forward and picks the ball up off the turf. he’s got it.

Ten: Seems like what offenses really need in this game is an offensive safety or two. A couple players positioned way backfield to prevent … what’s about to happen.

Juice: yeah. if they did that they almost certainly could’ve stopped him

Ten: There’s something I think about often, and it ties into something we talked about last time around.

I think if you sat these people down in, I don’t know, 1990, and explained to them that they would live forever, they would imagine themselves in the distant future as supremely wise people. They’d tell you, “well, with all the time in the world, I’ll come to understand everything in the world. I won’t make mistakes anymore. I won’t fuck up anymore. I’ll become the best version of myself.”

And it might well be true that they became the best version of themselves. That version still screws up relationships and leaves their sweater on the plane.

That version still plays million-yard football like it’s hundred-yard football.

Juice: mhmm

and thank god, because that is how this little odyssey began

Juice: on paper, Chuck wasn’t the fastest guy on the field, but he hauled ass all the way to Oklahoma without getting caught. when it comes to long-distance football, whatever’s on paper often goes out the window. it comes down to who really wants it the most. who’s willing to run for 19 hours a day, and who prefers to call it in and ask for another squad on your team to run ‘em down.

nobody wanted it more than Chuck, turns out

now when you’re a lone ball carrier, the smart move is to change fields as few times as possible. you don’t wanna leave a trail on the scoreboard. if they see USC move up in the rankings, then they go down and Kansas State moves up, then they go down and Grambling moves up, everybody in the country can correctly guess that you’re moving a football in southeastern oklahoma, where those three fields run past each other

if that happens, they find you and you’re fucked

Nine: What happens if you have to line up at scrimmage and you’re the only player on your team?

Juice: something very stupid

the old NCAA football rule book was our foundational text, and in almost every case we tried to interpret it as literally as possible. of course, there was neither a rule nor a mere insinuation for how a one-player offense should line up, so we just did our best

the lonely player lines up at center and snaps the ball to nobody. in old football rules this would be treated like a fumble is treated. logically, it’s legal for the center to then turn around and recover it

Nine: But it would be just as legal for the defense to just bowl you over.

Juice: yeah it’s a painful and humiliating experience.

Nine: That’s cool.

Ten: That sucks.

Juice: that’s cool. motion passes 2-1

so back to our buddy Chuck here. he’s made it about 200 miles north. he’s trying to stay on the Kansas field a while longer and then cut northwest. this is what players are coached to do when they’re carrying a ball by themselves. in the northwest united states it’s a lot more sparse and there’s a lot less action. less likely to run into trouble. from there he can just link up with the UCLA field, mission complete

but then at about the Kansas 398,800 yard line south, he runs into trouble. he’s hit to the Arkanas River, and on the other side he sees a huge squad of KU players who’ve finally showed up to figure out what a ball is doin on their field.

Chuck doesn’t really have a choice. he jukes northeast to transfer to Western Michigan’s field ...

Juice: … then northwest to hop onto Louisiana Tech’s field.

he knows that by doing this he’s gonna set off all kinds of alarm bells. again, people see Kansas pop on the scoreboard, then Western Michigan, then Louisiana Tech? everybody’s gonna know you got a ball and they’re gonna know right where you are

so Chuck’s on Louisiana Tech and he’s shit outta luck. he runs upfield and sees an army of Washington players combing through, looking for him under every log. he looks downfield. Kansas players doing the same. bad news all around

only hope now is to try and hide the football and come back for it later at some point

now, two things to know about this if you didn’t bother to read the rule book i sent y’all. the first thing is that

Nine: I read it!

Juice: nerd

the first thing is that you aren’t allowed to significantly alter on-field structures or terrain. so you can’t, for example, bury the ball. if we let people do that this game would never, ever end

the second thing is that every ball gives off a faint glow in the dark. this means you gotta be really, really skilled at hiding the ball. you gotta put a lot of thought into it

or, in Chuck’s case, get almost impossibly lucky.

he’s scurrying around in the hills outside of Lost City, desperately looking for somewhere to stash the ball, and eventually finds an old storage trunk.

it’s old. thousands and thousands of years old. to this day i have no fuckin idea how it got there or what it’s doing in the middle of nowhere. neither does Chuck, but he doesn’t care

it’s sunken into the ground, sticking out just enough for Chuck to pry the lid open and drop the ball in. now this is when he should look around for landmarks and try to figure out exactly where he’s at. but he’s panicked, and exhausted, and seriously sleep-deprived, and it’s the middle of the night. he glances around, feels like he has a good enough idea of his location, and walks out of the hills

when Kansas players intercept him, they find him without a football. he gives em a friendly wave and goes on his way

Ten: But like you said, everyone in the country can deduce that it’s up there in the hills somewhere.

Juice: well, Washington spent all night in the hills. 40 or so players, combing every stretch, looking for something that glowed in the dark. couldn’t find the fuckin thing. after three nights of searching, they gave up

but meanwhile, the rest of the country just assumed Washington recovered it

Nine: Yeah, but the scoreboard showed that Louisiana Tech had a ball on their field. It still says that now. Why would people assume that?

Juice: well, they assumed that Washington took the ball and hid it somewhere else on Tech’s field. took it and hid it somewhere way up north, probably, although from their perspective, there’s no telling

Nine: You can do that?

Juice: sure, why not? teams have sometimes done that, it’s a known tactic

Nine: Why would you hide your ball on someone else’s field if you had a choice?

Juice: hey, maybe you’ve found a real, real good hiding spot. or maybe you just wanna drive your opponent nuts. remember, all that matters is that you have all the balls on your own field at the end of the game. until then you can dump em wherever you think is safe

to Louisiana Tech and everyone else, that seemed like a far more reasonable explanation than “40 people spent three nights looking for a glow-in-the-dark football that was hidden by one dude who didn’t even know the terrain and they couldn’t find it”

and indeed, for the last 63 years, Louisiana Tech has had a ball on their field, they can’t find it, and it drives them fuckin CRAZY

Chuck has wanted to sneak back in and find it, but the area’s just so hot with activity these days that he couldn’t go anywhere near these hills without drawing suspicion from Tech

but UCLA really wants to bring this ball home. so they struck a deal.

you can sort of think of this as an archeological mission. UCLA called up Louisiana Tech and was like, hey. we know exactly where it is. if you let Chuck here onto your field for a few days to go get it, we’ll challenge you to a conventional football game on your home field. old-school, 100-yard football, with 100 players on each team.

winner takes the ball.

Ten: Holy shit. This I want to see.

Juice: me too!

except he CAN’T FUCKIN FIND IT!

Monica: Well listen, Chuck.

I just got a call from up top a few minutes ago. No go on the extension. They want you outta here by sundown.

Chuck: I see.

Monica: I hope you can see it from our position. We’ve been led on wild goose chases before. A few years ago, Minnesota fed us fake info, and we ended up pulling a third of our team out of Illinois to go look for it.

Chuck: I know that, I heard all about that, yeah.

But I ain’t …

I ain’t pullin’ your chain, Monica. It’s right here. It’s right around here and I know it.

Monica: Well, you know, they hear all this stuff you’re saying about a treasure chest and it sounds fantastical.

Chuck: It’s real. It was real.

Monica: For the record, I believe you when you say that. I really do. I just think … maybe someone else already came through here and found it.

Chuck: No one could’ve known where to look. No one else could’ve found it. Hell, I can’t even find it!

Monica: And maybe that should tell us something, shouldn’t it?

It could’ve been on another hill, maybe? You said it was dark and you were tired. You said you didn’t have your phone on you. You know,

Juice: THERE IT IS

YOU’RE ALMOST STANDING ON IT

IT’S RIGHT THERE

Monica: and I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but maybe it was on another hill somewhere? There’s lots of terrain in this part of the state that looks just like this. Our field runs through a lot of it.

Chuck: Oh no, no I don’t take offense ...

Truth be told, I’ve been asking that myself the last few days.

And I sure am sorry if I led you folks astray, I know it’s a big thing askin’ all these players to come out and help me look all week.

But it’s here. It’s right around here and I’ll always believe that.

Ten: Oh, come on.

Juice: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

FUCK!

Monica: Well listen. I can vouch for you. My coach is gonna be a little upset over this for a while. But maybe in a few years, you know, we can check out another

Juice: GOD

Monica: hill and see what we

Juice: DAMMIT

Monica: can find.

Chuck: You know chances of that are pretty slim.

Monica: I ...

yeah, they are.

Chuck: Well hey, I uh. I mean I understand. Please tell your coach I’m sorry.

Think I might keep lookin’ around here until sundown if it’s all the same to you. I don’t expect you to come with.

Monica: Sure.

I’ll leave you to it. Hey uh, we’re gonna be making some corned beef hash for dinner down at camp. You know, to celebrate our new ranking.

You’re welcome to join up when you’re done.

Chuck: Might take you up on that, ma’am. Thank you.

Monica: Yeah.

Juice: ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH

goddamn

y’all saw it right? y’all saw it?

Ten: Yeah, I did. It was just as you said. The lid was covered in some leaves, that was all.

Seems to me they’ll find it eventually. Monica clearly believes him. But then of course ... it’s not like they’ll need Chuck to help them. They’ll get it on their own. Thus no 100-on-100 game.

Juice: thus

yeah

Ten: I’m sorry, J. I wanted to see it as much as you did.

Ten: Ha.

It’s a little on the nose, though, isn’t it? Losing a football right near a place called “Lost City”?

Nine: Well if that’s on the nose, then so is this.

Ten: What’s that?

Nine: I found something.

I think I know where the chest comes from.

Do you have a minute?

Ten: Let me check.

Ten: Yes. Yes, I do.

Nine: Okay. Look at this.