Renner pitches the football to Sam’s right. Sam plucks the floating object out of midair and secures it within the crook of his right arm. His dark eyes set upon the wall of moving bodies, his mind dissecting the fluctuating current of pads and flesh.

Miami’s right guard and tackle are pulling, but Florida State’s all-American, Ryan Ehrensberger, is blitzing from his linebacker position, and fat Tucker is too slow to stop him. Ehrensberger shoots the gap in slow motion, his eyes widening, his face a mask of contortion and glee as he bears down on the ball carrier like a child on Christmas Day.

Not today, pal …

The Mule’s quadriceps fire, the capacity crowd gasping as number 23 gallops away from the Seminole’s blitzing linebacker with an almost inhuman burst of speed.

Slipping from Ehrensberger’s lunging tackle, Sam heads for the outside corner, only to see wideout Rusty Bradford tumble in slow motion as he misses his block on FSU’s strong safety.

The outside linebacker joins him, cutting off the corner.

Have to do it the hard way …

Planting his right foot, the Mule changes direction with an ankle-breaking pivot and rushes back toward the mounds of flesh now rolling in disarray along the line of scrimmage. The safety’s expression drops as he flails helplessly at a blur of orange and white that, only seconds before, had been the Miami tailback.

A wall of bodies looms ahead. The ‘Mule’ targets Joe Mastrangelo, FSU’s 377-pound all-American, Sam’s powerful ‘stiff arm’ striking the defensive tackle’s chest like a lance, the blow knocking the bulky lineman clear off his size eighteen triple-E shoes, opening a sliver of Kelly green daylight.

Samuel Agler slips through the hole and into the clear, leaving a half dozen would-be tacklers in his wake. Invisible flames of lactic acid singe his insides as he gallops untouched toward the end zone.

He crosses the thirty yard line … the forty—

Who’s out there?

The female’s voice startles him. He nearly stumbles at midfield.

Speak to me, cousin. Identify yourself.

Terrified, Sam wrenches his mind free of the zone.

The crowd noise returns.

Sam staggers down the right hash marks, his chest heaving, his mind urging his exhausted muscles to move faster.

‘He’s at midfield … the forty … the thirty … the Mule’s heading for the end zone, and no one in this arena’s going to catch him—touchdown!’ Todd Hoagland, the Hurricanes’ visual color commentator, is on his feet screaming into his remote headset as waves of hysteria bombard the MTI arena.

Samuel ‘the Mule’ Agler drops to his knees in the end zone, gasping great breaths of air as his delirious teammates rush to embrace him.

4:17 p.m.