ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
Who Knows What
RTG-01 · Knowledge-state tracker · Week 0 / Preseason
Columns are the five things that actually matter right now. A — how good he really is. B — that no college program has contacted 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 | Believes he is good enough to play somewhere; does not know at what level and has nobody who can tell him | Knows exactly | It's his | Cleared, and has not been hit in ten months, and is thinking about it more than he says | Committed to Sundays. Has not picked his three pieces. |
| Paul Shaffer | Convinced. Cannot get anyone to look. | Knows, and said it on the school broadcast on purpose | Knows | Knows he's cleared. Worries about the first hit. | Knows — Perkins called him about Thursdays and he was polite about it |
| Jeff Setzke | Knows he wins games. Has not thought about his ceiling and does not consider it his job. | Knows and considers it a distraction | Does not know, and would not like it | Knows he's cleared; that closes the subject | Unaware |
| Furhut (Mom) | Knows he's good at it. Has no framework for how good. | Does not fully register it as a problem | Does not know | Knows more than anyone. Is the reason he sat out the playoffs. | Was cc'd on the Perkins email and has not replied to 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 | Neutral on football; treats it as a logistics problem | Tracks it in a spreadsheet column | Built the system | Knows | Unaware |
| Karenna | Doesn't think about it | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Knows he was in the hospital and that it scared everyone | Unaware |
| Tommy Quinn | Believes it without understanding it | Knows | Knows | Knows | Knows — he's in the room |
| Hudson | Believes it and has to be careful about saying so in print | Reported it. Printed it. | Knows the number: nine. | Knows | Knows part of it. Has not printed any of it. |
| Ben Haijcar | Knows better than almost anyone — he watched it happen to him | Knows | Doesn't know | Knows he's cleared | Unaware |
| Kevin Lack | Total football belief, zero interest in the rest | Vaguely aware, hasn't thought about it | Doesn't know | Assumes fine | Unaware |
| Troy | Believes his cousin is the best player alive; is not a reliable source | Found out from Tiger Television and reacted badly | 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 | Knows he was hurt; doesn't know the details | 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 | Openly doubts it. "Against who?" | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know |
| Principal Bakker | Believes the public story enthusiastically | 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 | Doesn't think about it in football terms at all | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Doesn't know | Knows he plays piano — knew before anyone |
| The student body | Assumes he is being recruited by major programs | Wrong. Now partially corrected by Shaffer on the broadcast, which is spreading. | Unaware | Assumes fine | One thread on Yik Yak got it right |
| Wes Trombley (media) | Has seen the stat line, not the film, and said so honestly | Assumes it, correctly | Unaware | Knows there's no postseason film and why | Unaware he plays anything |
| Craig Harmon Ball State, QBs |
Has seen twelve minutes and one throw he says he couldn't teach. Wants a full game before he'll say more. | Assumes it | Knows — that's how he got the email | Doesn't know about the injury | Unaware |
| Christian Taylor Wyoming, OC/QBs |
Quizzed him on five concepts and got five right answers. Believes the processing is real and says the paperwork is what's missing. | Assumes it | Knows | Doesn't know | Unaware |
| Everyone else in college football | Do not know he exists, with one unidentified exception in Allendale | — | Four of the first nine opened a link; Michigan State did not open theirs | — | — |
He worked at Meijer, lifted at 6 a.m., and threw with two receivers on Sundays. The Fentonian corrected this in print on Friday. Corrections do not travel as fast as the thing they correct.
A rumor that he is a lock for a Power Four school, sourced to nobody, currently outrunning the truth by a considerable margin.
False. He started at free safety Tuesday and took eight snaps in the change-up package.
He weighed in at 182 on Monday. The printed roster says 175 because it was printed in June. He has now corrected this twice in one week, in a group chat, unprompted, at some cost to his dignity.
Perkins explicitly said this is not what he thinks. Nick assumed it anyway and admitted it. The conflict is real; the antagonism isn't.
Someone at Grand Valley State watched the entire highlight reel twice and then forty-one minutes of an unedited game. He has no idea. HUDL does not tell you who.
It was true when the paper printed it on Friday. It stopped being true at 9:48 p.m. on Tuesday. Nobody outside the Mansour house knows that, and the headline is still sitting in a stack in the front hall.