"Rylan," Isaiah Hunter asked as their as-of-yet unnamed snow bear wandered the park adjacent to the school., "Would you rather be a panda bear or a lion?"
"I'm me, Isaiah, why would I want to be anyone else?"
Isaiah conceded with a nod, "I'm not sure you realize just how mentally healthy that is."
Swisston has always been the middling team of the Big 8. They're not really able to slug it out with the heavyweights of five-time Big 8 champs like Cold Hill or Richardson, or the two-time semifinalists over in Kohnhead City. But they'll beat up on the bottom feeders all day, and put up numbers doing it.
So when this game was 20-16 with just minutes left to play, you can imagine the home crowd was deafening, as often happens in with Kohnhead's passionate fanbases. Benoit Youngblood hasn't been quite as flashy early on as the hype drew him up to be, now with four interceptions through his first two collegiate starts, but as of that moment, he was still 1-0 with a chance to stay unbeaten.
But right there, Youngblood showed the ice in his veins (pun! kinda.) It'd be three straight completions, one a bold call on a screen to Alexander Østby, and the Vanorian back picked up 37 yards on that catch before Darin Sundström brought his team inside the ten with just seconds on the clock.
And Nikolas Isaksen? He's always been a jump ball specialist - a corner fade to the outside shoulder was almost impossible to defend, and the ever-modest Vanorian superstar handed the ball off to the referee and let the rest of the team celebrate.
Benoit hasn't quite put up the numbers we expected early on, but these were his first two games in two years - and he's still unbeaten.