ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
The place
Fenton, Michigan. Genesee County, about twenty minutes south of Flint, close enough to Detroit that people drive down for games and far enough that nobody drives up. Orange (#E8672A) and black. Tigers. The football team plays in the Flint Metro League, Division 3 in the state playoff structure, about 1,100 students.
The program is fine. That is the accurate description and it should not be softened. Fenton is organized, competitive, well-coached, proud, and usually somewhere between fourth and second in the league. It is not a powerhouse. It does not expect to win the Metro every year, and in most years the honest ceiling is a good season and a district game. Goodrich is the program everyone measures against. Fenton is generally the one doing the measuring.
Which is precisely why last fall broke people's brains. An undefeated regular season here is not a matter of the schedule breaking right. It required a first-year player who had never been on a football field to be the best quarterback anyone in the league had seen in a decade, immediately, without a learning curve.
| School | Read on them entering 2026 |
|---|---|
| Goodrich | The measuring stick. Deep, physical, well-drilled, reloads every year. Expects to win the league and usually does. Week 8, at their place. |
| Fenton | Decent program holding an extraordinary quarterback. Preseason expectation has been permanently rewritten by one season. |
| Linden | Neighbor, rival, genuine dislike. The one game where the parking lot fills an hour early. |
| Flushing | Solid, physical, usually has a real running back and no interest in playing anyone's shootout. |
| Holly | Streaky. Can beat anyone in the league on the right Friday and lose to anyone on the wrong one. Homecoming opponent. |
| Clio | Week 1 opponent. Young, faster than their record last year, playing a new defensive coordinator's system. |
| Kearsley | Tough out at home. Small student section, loud one. |
| Swartz Creek | Bigger school, uneven football. Talent in spots. |
| Corunna | Runs it, controls the clock, hates every second of a game played at Fenton's tempo. |
| Carman-Ainsworth | The most raw athleticism in the league most years, not always the most organized football. |
The league produces good high school football, real rivalries, occasional Division II and Division III players, and once in a long while an FBS prospect. It does not produce nationally evaluated quarterbacks. National quarterback evaluators do not spend Friday nights in Genesee County. Nothing about that is going to change on its own.
Transactional. Sees football through winning, utility, and control. Gave Nick a job because it was free and useful, then started him because he was better. Capable of making a hard decision quickly and without sentiment — which is also why he gave a sophomore eight full practice periods against his returning starter this August, and why he'd do it again. He is not anyone's life mentor and does not pretend to be. He is also not a villain.
Older, warm, patient, a good high school football coach and not a secret genius. His real value is teaching Nick the ordinary parts nobody thinks about: how to run a huddle, how to correct a senior without sounding arrogant, how to survive a bad series, how to talk after a game. He is the mentor. Any story that gives that role to Setzke is wrong.
Does not do interviews and has never done one longer than two sentences. Has to replace seven starters. His entire public position on the season is "We're young. We'll be better in October than August."
Second season of organized football. Won the job in spring 2025 and had to win it again in August 2026 against a fifteen-year-old who outweighs him by more than forty pounds.
The quarterback before Nick was the quarterback. Bigger, more experienced, and by any normal accounting the guy this was supposed to be. He likes Nick and knows Nick is better, and both of those things being true at once is exactly why it stays awkward. Gets a package. Four interceptions last year — most by a Fenton defensive back since 2018. Two Division III programs have written to him about safety, which is more actual college contact than the quarterback has.
New this preseason. A sophomore who is already the second-biggest human being in the building. Genuinely muscular in a way that makes adults do a double take, throws it a long way without much effort, and got a real, unsentimental look at the starting job in August — eight full practice periods with the ones, on Setzke's instruction, because Setzke does not care whose feelings are involved.
He did not win it. It stopped being close around period six, when the install got complicated and Nick started changing protections at the line and Josh, to his credit, stood behind him and watched instead of sulking.
There is a little tension. It would be strange if there weren't. There is also a fifteen-year-old who now follows the senior around between reps asking what he just saw, and a senior who answers every single time.
Relationship states below are the Week 0 baseline for RTG-01 and will move. The full ledger lives on the relationship page.
Best skill player on the team. Undersized, no overwhelming traits, but shifty, advanced at the line of scrimmage, and impossible for Metro corners to stay attached to. Brash, cocky, socially the prototypical jock. Respects Nick's production completely and still finds him strange as a person.
Known Nick since they were small, never been close to him. Quiet, soft-spoken, bigger body, works the boundary, shields defenders, catches through contact. Does not get louder as things get bigger.
Tall, long, lanky, probably the best combination of size and traits in the receiver room. Ran a verified 4.6 in the school's own testing — the only verified number anybody on this offense has. Caught 22 balls in a rotation last year. Very much a development story.
Short, stocky, elusive, and a huge dumbass. Can absolutely be an asshole. Also does exactly what Nick tells him to do on a football field, every time, without arguing, which is more than can be said for several smarter people.
Loud online. Loud in the group chat. Publicly predicts forty points. Whether that's the whole picture is a Week 1 question.
New this preseason. Starts opposite Ben. Forty-one tackles last year, which he will tell you, and which mostly means people ran at him. He is not a good teammate and has never especially tried to be one. He was one of the loudest voices in the group of parents and players who thought starting a band kid over Ben Haijcar was a joke, and he has never revised the opinion — he has just stopped saying it where adults can hear.
He does say it elsewhere. Constantly.
Positionless kid who settled at tight end. Genuinely nice, religious, a little dumb, a meathead in the harmless sense. Not a prospect. Does the dirty work and never complains about it. Organizes an optional team prayer nobody is required to attend and quietly counts who comes.
Huge, very good. He and Nick were friends freshman year despite Kobe belonging comfortably to the jock world. Still a little skeptical of the whole thing, partly because Ben is his best friend. Also considers letting anyone touch his quarterback a personal failure. Has run a 6 a.m. lift with Nick four days a week since June 8 and communicates about it entirely in two-word texts.
Nick's cousin. A year older, repeating senior year. Cocky, certain he is smarter than everyone, in trouble constantly, undersized for a guard, and genuinely strong and mobile enough to have been all-state honorable mention anyway. Loves Nick more than probably anyone in the building and treats him like a little brother, lovingly and condescendingly, sometimes in the same sentence. That love is going to cause a problem at some point this year.
One of the three highest-upside players on the roster with Nick and Chase. Big, long, strong, moves decently, nice to everybody, liked across every group in the school. Grew an inch and a half over the summer and is now, by the trainer's measurement, the largest person enrolled at Fenton High School.
The one Fenton player with actual FBS recruiting attention. Eastern Michigan has been to two practices in person; Ferris State has been in contact. Big, athletic, rushes with a plan. As of Week 0 he is, by every objective measure of how recruiting works, the best college prospect on this team — and he is careful, without any edge in his voice, to point out that his situation and Nick's are not the same.
Bruising, not fast, not dynamic, extremely hard to bring down, and a class clown nobody takes seriously. Gets every carry inside the five, which is the entire explanation for Nick's zero rushing touchdowns. Surprisingly great hands — eighteen catches last year. Gained fourteen pounds this summer and insists it is "neck, mostly."
Homeroom acquaintance and one of the two people who told Setzke about Nick in the first place. Skinny, glasses, doesn't look like a football player, doesn't fit the team socially, not especially bright. Elusive in space and legitimately useful on third down. Watches every clip anyone sends him.
The other person who told Setzke. Shares half of Nick's schedule. Rarely plays. His role in this story already happened and it was bigger than anything he will do on the field.
Replacing a four-year starter. Does not speak. Coach Barrow's full evaluation is "been fine, which for a sophomore center is a rave review." Every snap of this season goes through his hands first and the school newspaper printed that, which was arguably unkind.
Second-year starter. Believes, sincerely and out loud to reporters, that Fenton wins the Metro title and that nobody talks about the offensive line. He is right about the second part — nine sacks allowed in nine games last year and it ran on page 2.
Known Nick since childhood, never close, always kind to him. Doesn't fit the football social world either. Has wanted to start for three years and there is no realistic path, because he is not good enough, and everyone including Tony knows it. Gave the longest and most thoughtful answer of anyone the school paper interviewed and then apologized for it.
Reads the social meaning of things before Nick does, every time. Cool without belonging to the loudest group. The only person this month who got the honest version.
Extremely competent, quiet without being shy, funny, smart, broadly liked. Gives good advice in about nine words and then stops talking.
Genuinely loves football, mostly the NFL, as a passionate casual. Has started watching opponent film for fun. Found a coverage read by himself this week and has not recovered from it.
Longtime member of the group. Not a football person and not trying to become one. Changed the subject to his mom's new dog at exactly the right moment this week and probably saved an evening.
Knows sports well, real friend, and one of the paper's two main reporters. Which means he already knows things as a friend that he cannot print. Wrote "Nobody called." Held back the part about the money and told Nick which was which.
Small, scrawny, doesn't play, understands sports better than most people who do. Dorky-popular. Talked ball with Nick long before any of this. Did not cut the Shaffer quote and thought about it for an hour.
The most popular girl in school and nice to nearly everyone, which is not the same as being uncomplicated. Runs the student section. Writes. Has posted about the orange-out four times and has begun replying to people individually.
Has had a crush on Nick since freshman year, well before football. Nothing about that is new and nothing about it is a reward. What is new is how other people would read it now — and the app has opinions.
New this preseason. Loud, funny, socially central, and the kind of popular that does not require being good at anything in particular. Does not play football and is fully at peace with that. His humor about Nick is real and it is mostly punching at the absurdity of the situation rather than at the kid — the Wing & Grill poster, the Meijer vest, the idea that any of this is normal.
He is also the only one of the three who noticed the line and stepped back from it.
Preppy, extremely nice, buttoned-up, fun. Fenton's distance star, Metro champion last fall. Ran a time trial on the 22nd that would have placed second at the state meet and described it as "just a time trial." May walk on at Michigan.
Reacted to the quarterback thing with total disbelief and has moved through pride into something more complicated. He thinks Nick has real musical ability and is watching football eat it. Wrote the 2026 marching show himself over the summer and put a solo piano feature in the third movement.
Knows Nick as a writer, which almost nobody at the school does anymore. Has watched this building decide a seventeen-year-old is a symbol before and will not say who.
Cannot quite revise his assumptions and does not appear to be trying very hard. Opened precalc with eleven minutes about the 1994 Fenton Tigers. Said "against who?" about a 35-touchdown season, in print, permanently.
Before football, filed Nick under insignificant little troublemaker. Now says his name at assemblies. His public support runs about six lengths ahead of his actual knowledge — asked a reporter whether Nick was "the one who did the piano thing," which he was, twice.
Not a sports guy. Michigan grad, loyal casual Michigan fan because he loves the school, not because he knows the roster. Supportive, and starting from zero on how any of this works. Printed a color list of 61 schools within four hours, at work, and asked what a preferred walk-on is.
Very smart, very practical, not especially emotional in how she communicates. Does not yet grasp the scale of what football could be worth, including that it could pay for school. Grasps the kidney completely, and is the reason he sat out the playoffs.
Preppy, driven, leadership-track, nothing like her brother. Built a 140-row outreach spreadsheet nobody asked her to build. Currently the only other person who knows two college coaches wrote back, and the only person actively hunting for a camp with a stopwatch.
Relaxed, funny, temperamentally the closest thing to Nick in the family. Deflates any room that gets too serious in about four seconds. Texted "you up" at 11:04 on a Wednesday for no stated reason and was the only one who noticed.
Watches. Says little. Has opinions. Confirmed he is coming Friday in a single word and the family group chat lost its mind.