ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
Who Knows What
RTG-01 · Who-knows-what tracker · Preseason, Week 0
The five columns are the only facts that currently matter. A — how good he really is. B — that not a single college program has reached out to him. C — that he is emailing schools himself. D — the state of his kidney. E — the Perkins conflict.
| Person | A · Talent | B · No contact | C · Self-outreach | D · Health | E · Music |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nick | Is confident he can play college football somewhere, has no idea at what tier, and knows nobody qualified to tell him | Knows exactly | It's his | Medically cleared, ten months without contact, and dwelling on it far more than he lets on | Committed to Sundays. Has not picked his three pieces. |
| Paul Shaffer | Convinced. Cannot get anyone to look. | Knows, and deliberately put it on the student broadcast | Knows | Knows he's cleared. Worries about the first hit. | Knows — Perkins phoned him regarding Thursdays and he handled it graciously |
| Jeff Setzke | Knows he wins games. Has never considered the kid's ceiling and does not regard that as his responsibility. | Knows and considers it a distraction | Is unaware, and would not take it well | Knows he's cleared; that closes the subject | Unaware |
| Furhut (Mom) | Knows he's good at it. Has no framework for how good. | Has not really processed it as a problem | Does not know | Knows more than anyone. It is why he missed the playoff run. | Received a copy of the Perkins email and has yet to answer it |
| Jerry (Dad) | Proud, no calibration, learning off the internet | Knows. Asks about it roughly every 48 hours. | Knows | Knows he's cleared | Unaware |
| Ari | Holds no opinion on the sport; approaches it purely as scheduling | Tracks it in a spreadsheet column | Built the system | Knows | Unaware |
| Karenna | Doesn't think about it | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Knows about the hospital stay and how badly it frightened the household | Unaware |
| Tommy Quinn | Believes it without understanding it | Knows | Knows | Knows | Knows — he's in the room |
| Hudson | Believes it, and must be cautious about committing that belief to print | Reported it. Printed it. | Knows the number: nine. | Knows | Knows part of it. Has not printed any of it. |
| Ben Haijcar | Understands it more clearly than nearly anyone, having lived through the same thing | Knows | Doesn't know | Knows he's cleared | Unaware |
| Kevin Lack | Rates him as accurate and credits him with delivering the football. Refuses to weigh in on anyone else's ceiling while his own is unresolved. | Vaguely aware, hasn't thought about it | Doesn't know | Assumes fine | Unaware |
| Troy | Holds that his cousin is the greatest player breathing; should not be trusted on this | Learned it watching Tiger Television and did not take it well | Knows, and volunteered to make it worse | Knows | Unaware |
| Mr. Perkins | Watched the Linden game. Understood what he saw. Says so. | Suspects. Has not asked. | Doesn't know | Aware there was an injury; has none of the specifics | It's his whole file |
| Mrs. Grady | Knows the writer, not the quarterback | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know |
| Mr. Gilbert | Actively hostile to the idea. "Against who? I played in this league." Ran a freshman team back in the nineties and considers that credential sufficient. | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know |
| Principal Bakker | Did not know Nick existed before football. Asked "is he the tall one?" Currently very excited about someone he could not pick out of a lineup. | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know |
| Hannah | Believes the school version | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know |
| Sylvia | Does not frame any of it through football | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Knows about the piano, and knew before anybody else did |
| The student body | Takes for granted that big programs are already after him | Wrong. Partly walked back by Shaffer on air, and that correction is now circulating. | Unaware | Assumes fine | A single Yik Yak thread landed on the truth |
| Wes Trombley (media) | Has read the production but not watched the tape, and admitted as much | Assumes it, correctly | Unaware | Knows there's no postseason film and why | Unaware he plays anything |
| Craig Harmon Ball State, QBs |
Has watched twelve minutes of it, including one throw he says is unteachable. Will not commit further without a complete game. | Assumes it | Knows, which is how the email reached him in the first place | Doesn't know about the injury | Unaware |
| Christian Taylor Wyoming, OC/QBs |
Tested him on five concepts and got five correct responses. Considers the processing genuine and says the only gap is documentation. | Assumes it | Knows | Doesn't know | Unaware |
| Everyone else in college football | Have no knowledge of him whatsoever, apart from one unnamed party in Allendale | — | Of the first nine, four clicked a link; the Michigan State message went unopened | — | — |
His summer was shifts at Culver's, six o'clock lifts, and Sunday throwing sessions with two receivers. The Fentonian ran a correction on Friday. A correction never moves as quickly as the error it chases.
An unsourced rumor that a Power Four school is a done deal, and it is beating the truth around the building by a wide margin.
False. Tuesday he opened at free safety and logged eight snaps in the change-up package.
He weighed in at 155 on Monday. That roster lists 149 for the simple reason that it went to the printer in June. Twice in seven days he has volunteered a correction in the group chat, unasked, at measurable expense to his pride.
Technically true and completely misleading. First chair trombone since ninth grade and the finest pianist in the school — Perkins, twenty-six years on the job, calls him the best musician he has ever taught. This building has never drawn a line between "was in band" and "was the best musician in the band," and the latter earned him precisely nothing until a football left his hand. Perkins put that on the record in Friday's paper. At press time there has been no response from anyone.
Perkins stated plainly that this is not his position. Nick assumed it anyway and admitted it. The conflict is real; the antagonism isn't.
Somebody inside Grand Valley State ran the full highlight reel twice and then sat through forty-one minutes of raw game footage. He has no idea. HUDL does not tell you who.
It was accurate as of Friday's press run. It stopped being true at 9:48 p.m. on Tuesday. No one beyond the Mansour family is aware of it, and that headline is still in a pile by the front door.