What football will look like in the future - Football 17776 Thread

Spoiler: Chapter 12

It could, yeah - and while Nick isn't completely out of OBT (he's still got 25 seconds on the clock), it's now settled that there's no way he's making the run back to their home field with Manny.

But it means that their team's in slightly better shape than they could be, if Manny and Nick can get those footballs back to their home field. There's pretty much one team I consider actually likely to succeed at getting all the way to San Diego and back, and managing to get the balls in the process and bring them all the way back and get them to safety...and it's UAB.

They're the only team we've seen so far with the institutional patience needed to build up enough OBT to not only get their players to the San Diego field, but to get them back as well without having to spend centuries stuck there...and they're also the only team that's good enough to send out any number of players they want and have the play work. Heck, they could send the whole house down to San Diego, then parade on back!

For anyone else, though? If those footballs make it back to the San Diego State field, they're gone. No one's got enough OBT built up to make that run once, much less twice. No one's got the institutional patience needed to build it up. And no one - absolutely no one - is going to have a decent shot at making it onto the San Diego field and successfully getting even one football away from a team that's going to have had decades or centuries to prepare for opponents coming for it.

I have a pretty good idea of what Nick's likely going to be doing for the next century or so, though. There's only one really good place to make that run from, after all - the spot where it's the shortest distance between the fields. And someone's going to have to watch it and guard it, to alert the home team when someone finally tries to cross between the fields and get to San Diego.
Might as well be Nick. Where's better, for him to set up shop and spend time while he builds up his OBT again?

God, Letitia has awful luck, though. Any other team, any other pair of players, and Oklahoma would've had that. Hell, they nearly did have it! If Nick hadn't pulled that stunt right when he did, he and Manny would've lost them!

And god, I'm so proud of Manny for managing to bluff her with the honest truth. Yep, he and Nick are the fastest players in the whole game. And yep, none of the Oklahoma players are going to manage to catch them, they're not as fast. Just ignore the fact that Nick's only got 25 seconds of OBT left (and thus can't pull that stunt twice) and that he and Manny are both exhausted from having had to run all over the county all night, and Nick probably collapsed once he made it safely back onto the field.

Kinda hope Letitia keeps her job. She did good - it's not her fault that it turned out this way, she made what would've been the correct call under any other circumstances. And she's making what's the right call for the team - letting Nick and Manny stay on their field, without telling anyone else who they are, means that it looks like Oklahoma still has those balls for a while...and they can use that to recruit, and build a stronger team. Which is what her job's all about.