In the moment.

Corey Moore was in the zone in the Thursday night game against Clemson. What is the zone, and what does it feel like to be there?

It’s not easy to get there. Some athletes, amateur or pro, never get there. Some get there once, and spend the rest of their lives trying to get back. The best athletes never seem to leave it. Each performance seems effortless, yet impossible for mortals.

I’ve been there a few times. I still relish the feeling, but the memory is bittersweet, knowing that for one perfect moment I was like all the athletes whose performances I’ve admired and applauded, yet also knowing that as I get older, the chances of ever getting back there grow fainter.

What is it, though, you ask.

If you’ve never experienced it, no mere language could ever describe it. If you have, you’ll just nod knowingly and experience your own memories again. But I’ll shoot at it.

The zone is a moment. That’s it. Just a moment. There’s nothing there, nothing, just you and the moment. No, that’s not right. It’s when an entire act is reduced to a single millisecond of decision and action that is over before you can experience it, a reaction so pure and quick and intense and white-hot perfect that you know how perfect it is, you feel it, before it finishes. There is no conscious thought. You might fill in thoughts later, but you’re not thinking at that moment. It happens faster than you can think.

You can be in the zone for one play, one game, one series of games, even a whole season. But it all comes down to that moment when you react and you’re perfect in your game. And then if you’re lucky, you go back there again for the next play.

See, I said you can’t explain it. It’s like pouring paint over a rock and telling the rock, "See those beautiful colors?"

Still, I’d like to give you a glimpse, just a pale, misty ghost-vision of what it might have been like to be Corey Moore against Clemson. To be in the zone.

You line up for the first series. The air is cooling quickly, drying the sweat on your skin. The lights star in your eyes ever so slightly just above the quarterback's head. The grass is dewy, cold, slimy, the earth grainy beneath your knuckles as you crouch in your stance. Your whole body is tight, wound like a spring past breaking, ready to shoot into the backfield. You wait, sensing the snap count approaching.

Your legs fire, driving your right shoulder into and over the defenders pads, slipping past them effortlessly. The quarterback stands waiting, and sees your eyes. He tenses, ready to throw, but you’re only a step away. You can feel the distance narrow. His arm snaps forward just as your pads pound his rib cage and you drive him to the ground.

Of course, you only remember this later. The whole act took less than 5 seconds, less than 3 after the snap. The whole time you heard nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing, sensed nothing but the quarterback and you, and the distance falling away between you.

So it goes the whole night. There are differences. Once, they try a reverse, but you slide easily past the tailback and loop the ball carrier with your arm, tossing him to the turf like a discarded toy. Each play, the silence remains until the play is over, and then the cheers of the crowd echo lazily in the back of your mind as you go back to line up again. Between plays, you can feel the bruises throbbing, but they’re not even part of you, just a dream reminder of a body you might have had once. Once the play starts, there is nothing once again, just you and the play.

Your opponents aren’t even there. They’re hallucinations, orange and white shadows simply to be overcome, destroyed.

The game wears on, and for a few moments you stand aside, breathing hard, following the action. Your body screams for action, to be back on the field, your muscles contracting involuntarily with every play.

And then you go back in, and the cycle starts again, until late in the fourth quarter. The score is closer than you’d like. You feel dread like cold steel in your gut, knowing you could lose, but you push it down, screw your rage down tight against the feeling. You will not lose.

And then, the snap. You explode past the tackle untouched, and in two steps you're on top of the quarterback as he fires the ball just over your outstretched fingers. You smash into him, driving him into the grass yet again. Then you hear the crowd roar, and see your teammate streaking into the end zone. The victory is safe.

You celebrate briefly and get a few quick breaths on the sideline. Then back to your stance. The tiger rage screams inside you, and the ball is snapped. Again, you blast by the tackle untouched. Your angle is too deep though, and the quarterback rocks forward to pass. You hammer his arm just as he sets, and the ball bounds free. You scoop it up easily, and race into the end zone. As you cross the line, the crowd erupts into your consciousness. And the rage is satisfied.

-- The Phantom Hokie