Longhorns invade Tuscaloosa, slap Crimson Tide in big win
Score
FINAL
1
2
3
4
T
Alabama
0
3
14
11
28
#1 Texas
0
28
7
7
42
Scoring Summary 1st Quarter
No Scoring
2nd Quarter (10:53) Kaliq Lockett, 23-yard pass from Michael Hawkins Jr. (Johnny Kane kick) [TEX 7 - 0 BAMA] (7:10) Christian Clark, 4-yard run (Johnny Kane kick) [TEX 14 - 0 BAMA] (4:26) Kaliq Lockett, 11-yard pass from Michael Hawkins Jr. (Johnny Kane kick) [TEX 21 - 0 BAMA] (1:19) Conor Baity, 49-yard field goal [TEX 21 - 3 BAMA] (0:06) Christian Clark, 3-yard pass from Michael Hawkins Jr. (Johnny Kane kick) [TEX 28 - 3 BAMA]
3rd Quarter (11:05) Kaliq Lockett, 82-yard returned punt (Johnny Kane kick) [TEX 35 - 3 BAMA] (7:06) Khalid Dawsey, 1-yard run (Conor Baity kick) [TEX 35 - 10 BAMA] (3:31) Kaleb Edwards, 38-yard pass from Keelon Russell (Conor Baity kick) [TEX 35 - 17 BAMA]
4th Quarter (10:28) Conor Baity, 19-yard field goal [TEX 35 - 20 BAMA] (5:03) Derek Williams Jr., 63-yard returned interception (Johnny Kane kick) [TEX 42 - 20 BAMA] (1:46) Jordan Napier, 7-yard pass from Keelon Russell (2-PT conversion successful) [TEX 42 - 28 BAMA] Team Statistics QB Keelon Russell: 27-44, 262 passing yards, 2 touchdowns, 4 interceptions QB Michael Hawkins Jr.: 19-33, 205 passing yards, 3 touchdowns, interception, 11 carries, 55 rushing yards
Zane began stalking off the field toward the dressing room with his helmet still tucked beneath his arm, his head lowered as the noise from the stadium followed him into the tunnel. The Texas faithful had found their voice, and they were using every ounce of it to berate him as he walked.
Some of the players he had become familiar with during his official visit to Austin months earlier had spotted him and were screaming in his direction, their voices cutting through the din of the stadium and the groans of the remaining Alabama fans who sat beside themselves in disbelief.
“Weak ass nigga!” one of them shouted. Another followed with, “Look who made the wrong fucking choice!” Then came the one that made Zane's jaw tighten even though he refused to look up.
“Ran into your shit and took your bitch over!” Zane shook his head and kept walking, his gaze fixed on the ground as the words followed him deeper into the tunnel.
Shocking wasn't the right word for what had happened. He had known Texas was going to be a difficult opponent.
They were the best team in the country for a reason, and nobody inside Alabama's building had approached the game believing they were walking into an easy afternoon. Zane had spent enough time around the program during his recruiting process to understand just how talented the Longhorns were, and he had respected them because of it. But this wasn't simply a loss.
This was horrific. They hadn't been beaten in a competitive game where a handful of plays separated two talented teams. They had been embarrassed, and the distinction weighed heavily on him as he made his way toward the locker room. Against Ohio State, Alabama had at least managed to hang in the fight for stretches before ultimately collapsing.
Against Texas, they had given up. The cheers from the Longhorn faithful echoed through the concrete tunnel and seemed to grow louder as Zane disappeared farther from the field, surrounded by teammates who looked just as dejected and defeated as he felt.
He shook his head as he walked, replaying everything that had gone wrong in his mind. Failed blocks. Awfully run routes. Horrific quarterback play. Missed assignments that had turned manageable situations into disasters.
There had been moments where Zane had looked around the field and genuinely wondered whether the players around him understood the magnitude of what they were doing. This was Alabama. This was supposed to be the standard his father had told him to chase, the place where he had come to turn himself into something greater than the player he had been at Syracuse.
Instead, they had just walked into one of the biggest games of the season and looked completely unprepared for the moment. By the time he entered the dressing room, the anger had swallowed whatever disappointment remained.
Zane stalked toward his locker and ripped his helmet from beneath his arm before throwing it against the metal. The helmet slammed into the locker with a violent bang and rolled away across the floor, coming to a stop several feet from him as the metallic echo reverberated throughout the room.
Heads turned almost immediately. A few of his teammates stared at him without saying anything, while others quickly returned their attention to their equipment, seemingly desperate to disappear into their own routines before anyone could ask them to explain what had just happened.
Zane dropped onto the bench with a heavy thud and doubled over, planting his elbows against his thighs as he stared at the floor. His breathing was heavy, his chest still rising and falling from the game, but the physical exhaustion couldn't compete with the anger boiling underneath it. He clenched his hands together before finally bellowing, “Fuck!”
Every sound in the dressing room immediately stopped. The room fell so quiet that Zane could practically hear the faint hum of the ventilation system above them. He lifted his head, his eyes sweeping across the room as several of his teammates stared back at him.
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Zane's frustration finally spilled over as he looked around at the players who had just walked off the field beside him.
"28 points in the second quarter,” he screamed, his voice cracking against the walls. “What the fuck are we doing?” A few players shook their heads, seemingly unable to answer because they didn't have one themselves. Others continued undressing, pulling off their pads and jerseys with their eyes lowered as they tried to get through the aftermath without drawing attention to themselves. The embarrassment hung over the room as heavily as the exhaustion, and for a moment, nobody seemed willing to confront what had just happened.
The door opened a moment later, and Coach Kiffin walked into the dressing room with his head shaking slowly from side to side. He rubbed the back of his neck as he stepped inside, his crimson Alabama visor clenched in one hand. He didn't need to ask what had happened.
The look he gave Zane made it obvious that he had heard the outburst from the hallway. He stood there for a moment, taking in the room, before drawing a long breath through his nose and letting it out slowly. His eyes moved from player to player, eventually settling on Zane before he began speaking.
"We have to look ourselves in the mirror,” he said, his voice controlled but carrying enough weight to silence the room all over again. “And ask ourselves what kind of fucking team we want to be.”
Kiffin tightened his grip around the visor and gestured toward the door leading back toward the field.
“Because that shit,” he said, pointing toward the tunnel, “was horseshit. An embarrassment to our history and to our tradition. To our standard.”
Nobody moved as he allowed the words to sit with them. There was no attempt to sugarcoat the loss, no speech about moral victories or learning experiences, because Kiffin clearly wasn't interested in pretending Alabama had done anything worthy of praise. He looked around the room one final time, his expression hardening as he continued.
“Go home. Figure yourselves out. Come back prepared to right the ship or don't come back at all.”
With that, Kiffin turned and stomped out of the dressing room, leaving the players to sit with the silence that followed him. Zane remained hunched over for another few seconds, staring at the floor where his helmet had come to rest. The anger hadn't disappeared, but the adrenaline was beginning to fade, leaving behind something heavier and more uncomfortable.
He finally huffed a breath through his nose, shook his head, and reached for the rest of his equipment. Around him, his teammates slowly returned to undressing and packing their things, the room gradually filling with the muted sounds of shoulder pads being dropped, lockers opening, and bags being zipped shut. Zane said nothing as he continued changing, his mind already replaying the game from beginning to end, knowing that whatever Alabama had been before that afternoon, they couldn't afford to be the same team when they returned.
***
The dinner rush had turned the Raising Cane’s on Fifth Avenue into a controlled kind of chaos, with the steady rhythm of orders being called from behind the counter, trays sliding across stainless steel surfaces and the smell of fried chicken hanging heavily in the air.
Rasheed stood beside Mariah near the pickup counter, his hands tucked casually into the pockets of his jacket as they waited for their number to be called. They had been spending more time together over the past few weeks, enough that the awkwardness that had initially existed between them had begun to wear away.
There was still something strange about the relationship they had fallen into, considering how they had met and everything that had happened surrounding Felix, but Mariah had never seemed particularly interested in pretending that life was supposed to make sense.
She had started asking him questions about his life now, about what he was doing, where he was going and what he imagined the next few months might look like, and Rasheed had found himself answering more honestly than he expected.
Mariah glanced toward him as another employee hurried past with a tray of food, then returned her attention to him.
“So, are you looking for work?” she asked, her tone casual enough that it didn't feel like an interrogation.
Rasheed shrugged, watching a young cashier call out another order number before turning back toward the kitchen.
He told her that the program he was working with through his parole arrangement was trying to get him situated somewhere, but progress had admittedly been slow. There were forms, meetings, background checks and people who needed to approve other people before anything could actually happen. He wasn't exactly walking into the workforce with a clean résumé, and both of them knew that without him needing to say it.
Mariah nodded slowly, taking in the scene around them as the restaurant workers continued moving with the efficiency of people who had been dealing with the dinner rush for hours.
She tilted her head after a moment, considering something else.
“Then how are you affording everything right now?” she asked. Rasheed breathed through his nose and glanced toward the front windows, where the fading afternoon light reflected off the passing cars on Fifth Avenue.
He explained that his parents had owned their house outright, and the life insurance policies they had left behind had been covering most of the bills in the meantime. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it had given him enough breathing room to figure out what came next without immediately worrying about whether he could keep the lights on.
Mariah's expression softened as she listened, and she told him that it was nice that even while he had been in prison, his parents had still made sure to take care of him.
Rasheed shook his head, his locs flicking back and forth with the motion. “Not exactly,” he said, his voice quieter as he corrected her.
He explained that Zane had actually been the main beneficiary of his grandparents' estate, but before leaving for Tuscaloosa, Zane had signed everything over to him. The words seemed to hang between them for a moment.
Mariah's mouth dropped open slightly before she caught herself and quickly closed it, her eyebrows lifting as she looked at him.
“That's bold of him,” she said, almost under her breath. Rasheed shrugged again, looking down at the receipt in his hand and checking their order number as though the tiny printed digits were suddenly more interesting than the conversation.
“He's getting paid $2.5 million to play football for Alabama this year,” Rasheed said. “He ain't exactly hard up for money.”
There was a trace of pride in his voice that he didn't bother hiding. He explained that he had tried to tell Zane no, that he would figure things out himself and didn't need his son taking care of him, but Zane had been as stubborn as they came. Once the boy had made up his mind, there wasn't much anybody could do to change it.
Mariah smiled sheepishly, her eyes dropping for a moment before she muttered, “I wonder who he got that from?” Rasheed gave a fake laugh, one that came out more like a short bark than anything resembling genuine amusement, but the corners of his mouth lifted anyway.
He was about to say something else when movement outside the edge of his vision caught his attention.
At first, Rasheed couldn't quite identify what had pulled his eyes away from Mariah, but something about the figure standing near the edge of the restaurant had immediately registered as wrong. He turned his head slowly and found a Black man standing outside the shop, dressed in a ratty hoodie that looked far too heavy for the weather.
The man wasn't doing anything obvious. He wasn't pacing or waving or trying to get someone's attention. He was simply staring through the glass at them.
Rasheed's expression changed almost imperceptibly as he focused on him. The two men locked eyes, and for a few seconds neither moved. Rasheed searched the man's face, trying to place him, but the years he had spent behind bars had left him with a strange relationship with memory. He recognized faces all the time without immediately remembering where he had seen them, and sometimes the recognition didn't arrive until hours or even days later. This one felt familiar. Not familiar enough to name, but familiar enough to make the hair along the back of his neck rise.
Mariah stepped toward the counter when their number was finally called, collecting the bag of food from the worker before turning around and noticing that Rasheed hadn't moved. She followed his line of sight and saw the man through the glass. Her eyebrows tightened as she walked back toward him.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
Rasheed didn't answer immediately. He continued staring, his eyes narrowing as the man shifted his weight. Eventually, the stranger gave Rasheed a small nod, almost as though acknowledging an acquaintance, before turning away and beginning to walk down the street. One of his arms remained stuffed deep inside his pocket as he disappeared along Fifth Avenue.
Only then did Rasheed finally break his gaze. He looked back toward Mariah and shrugged, though the motion didn't carry much conviction. He told her that he felt like he knew the man from somewhere, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Mariah studied his face carefully, then glanced toward the window again.
“Someone from your past?” she asked.
There was no accusation in her voice, but Rasheed understood exactly what she meant. His criminal past wasn't some obscure detail that could simply be ignored, especially now that he was back on the streets.
He nodded slowly, accepting that the answer was probably yes. “Must be,” he said. He looked back toward the street where the man had disappeared, his mind turning over old faces and old names. “Because who the hell else is wearing a hooded sweater when it's 90 degrees outside?”
Mariah looked at him for a moment, then down at the bag of food hanging from her hand. She didn't make another joke. Rasheed could tell she wanted to ask more, but she seemed to understand that pushing him right then wouldn't get her anywhere. Instead, she shifted closer to him and handed him part of the order while keeping the rest for herself.
Rasheed accepted the bag, but his attention remained fixed on the window. He told himself it was nothing. Pittsburgh was full of people he had known before prison, people who had changed, people who hadn't changed at all and people who had simply disappeared from his life. He had spent more than a decade behind concrete walls, and now he was trying to convince himself that he could walk around his old city without the past reaching out to grab him by the collar. Maybe the man had simply recognized him. Maybe he had mistaken Rasheed for somebody else. Maybe the stare meant absolutely nothing.
Still, the feeling wouldn't leave.
***
SkyBar Cafe pulsed with music after Auburn’s latest victory, the bass rolling through the building hard enough that Bianca could feel it in her chest.
The place was larger than she had expected, with multiple levels and sprawling sections that seemed to stretch farther than the entrance suggested. Colored lights moved lazily across the walls and ceiling, reflecting off glasses raised in celebration as students packed around tables, leaned against the bars, and spilled into whatever open space they could find.
Auburn had won, and apparently that meant the entire university had decided it was time to forget about tomorrow. Bianca had hesitated before coming. She had already spent enough time worrying that she had pushed Katie into the nightlife too quickly, especially after everything she had been through, and the last thing Bianca wanted was to feel responsible for another bad night.
Katie, however, had been adamant. She wanted to go out. She wanted to have fun. She wanted to prove, at least to herself, that she wasn't going to spend the rest of her life hiding from the things that had happened to her. Eventually, Bianca had relented.
Katie had thrown herself into the evening almost immediately, swallowing shots whenever someone offered one and laughing loudly enough to make people around her turn and smile. Bianca had chosen a different approach, nursing vodka sodas and making sure she remained sober enough to keep her head clear.
For whatever reason, she simply couldn't get into the nightlife the same way Katie could. There was nothing inherently wrong with it, and she understood why people enjoyed themselves, but Bianca always felt as though she were standing just outside the experience, watching everyone else have the time of their lives.
She had spent years learning how to keep herself composed, and something about a crowded room full of alcohol, loud music, and strangers made her instinctively want to maintain control rather than surrender it. Still, she had smiled when Katie dragged her through the crowd earlier, and she had tried to let herself enjoy the night. She just couldn't shake the feeling that she needed to keep one eye on her friend.
Her phone vibrated against her back pocket, giving her something else to focus on. Bianca pulled it out and glanced at the screen, finding a message from Darius back at Michigan. He had decided to finish his career at Michigan rather than follow Bianca and Katie to Auburn, and she had initially wondered how much they would actually keep in touch once they were separated by several states.
Apparently, she hadn't needed to worry about that. Darius had asked how the nightlife was in Auburn, and Bianca couldn't help the small smile that appeared across her face as she typed back that he needed to book a flight and find out for himself. She stared at the message for a moment after sending it, surprised by the warmth that accompanied the thought of him.
She missed Darius more than she had expected to. He had been an easy friend to have, uncomplicated in a way that she had come to appreciate more and more. He was just a guy, a genuinely good friend who could be relied upon to have his shit together when everything around them seemed determined to fall apart.
Bianca slipped her phone back into her pocket and looked across the room, her thoughts naturally returning to Katie. She wasn't judging her friend for what she had been through, and she never wanted Katie to think that she was. But Bianca would have been lying if she said she wasn't constantly worried about her. Katie could disappear into periods of severe depression where getting out of bed seemed like an impossible task.
Her room would become a disaster, clothes and empty containers scattered everywhere, and Bianca sometimes had to practically beg her to eat something.
Then, seemingly without warning, Katie would emerge from that darkness with an almost manic determination to live everything she felt she had missed, insisting they should go bar hopping or find the next party or do something reckless simply because she could. Bianca had learned that there wasn't always a clean explanation for it. Sometimes Katie needed space, sometimes she needed company, and sometimes Bianca simply had to be there without trying to solve something that couldn't be solved for her. Tonight, however, Bianca had the growing sense that she had taken her eyes off Katie for too long.
She scanned the crowd once, then again, her eyes moving over tables and groups of students until the realization settled into her stomach that Katie was nowhere in sight. Panic came quickly, sharper than Bianca expected, because she had only looked away for a minute.
She pushed through the crowd toward the bar, eventually spotting the bartender, a red-haired woman with striking green eyes who seemed almost completely unfazed by the chaos unfolding around her.
Bianca leaned toward her, knowing she would have to practically shout to be heard over the music, and quickly described Katie: long blonde hair, blue eyes, a dark tank top, and tight blue jeans. The bartender listened while continuing to work, then smirked and nodded toward the hallway leading to the bathrooms.
She told Bianca that her friend had been making out with some guy and had pulled him toward the bathrooms. The bartender admitted, with an almost careless shrug, that she had half a mind to call security, but figured that if everyone involved was consenting, she wasn't going to make a big deal out of it.
Bianca blinked at her for a moment, caught off guard by the woman's bluntness, before turning toward the hallway. The farther she walked from the main room, the more muffled the music became, although the bass still seemed to vibrate faintly through the walls.
She pushed through the women's bathroom door and immediately found Katie.
One guy was kissing her while another stood behind her, his hands roaming over her waist and sides as Katie remained caught up in the moment. Bianca stopped short, her stomach tightening as she processed what she was seeing. It wasn't simply that Katie was kissing someone; it was the way the entire scene seemed so detached from the friend Bianca knew, the same friend who could barely get herself out of bed some mornings and who had spent so much time struggling to reclaim a sense of control over her own life.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Bianca bellowed, stepping further into the bathroom. The man behind Katie looked up a moment, his hands not leaving her body.
Katie separated from the man she was making out with, her eyes opening and focusing on Bianca after a moment. Her face hardened, her eyebrows furrowed for a moment as if Bianca was breaking up the good time.
"Either join in or fuck off, I'm not dealing with your shit tonight, Mom," Katie slurred, reaching her hand up to the man's face who was not staring at Bianca confused. A sly smirk reappeared on his face as his lips now met Katie's again.
Bianca breathed slowly through her nose, forcing herself not to respond with the anger that was beginning to rise inside her. She had spent too much time trying to understand Katie's pain to let one ugly moment turn into a fight that neither of them would know how to take back. Instead, she nodded faintly, backed toward the door, and left the bathroom without another word.
The music swallowed her again as soon as she stepped into the hallway. Bianca stopped just outside the door, staring blankly at the floor while the party continued around her as though nothing had happened.
Students laughed, shouted, danced, and celebrated Auburn's victory with the careless enthusiasm of people who had no idea that someone standing only a few feet away felt as though the ground had shifted underneath her. She reached into her pocket and wrapped her fingers around her phone, resisting the urge to call someone simply because she needed to hear a familiar voice. Darius came to mind first, but she didn't dial his number. This was Katie's life, Katie's struggle, and Bianca knew that she couldn't always be the person who dragged her back toward the surface.
@
(2-1, 0-0 SEC)
(10:53) Kaliq Lockett, 23-yard pass from Michael Hawkins Jr. (Johnny Kane kick) [TEX 7 - 0 BAMA]
(1:19) Conor Baity, 49-yard field goal [TEX 21 - 3 BAMA]
(11:05) Kaliq Lockett, 82-yard returned punt (Johnny Kane kick) [TEX 35 - 3 BAMA]
(7:06) Khalid Dawsey, 1-yard run (Conor Baity kick) [TEX 35 - 10 BAMA]
Go back to Syracuse bruh
