Summary of the Book
QB1 by Mike Lupica takes place in Granger, Texas. The basis of the book starts out in a flashback. In the living room, Jake Cullen replays his older brother Wyatt`s State Championship winning drive on the television. He knows that in a town where it is a gift to be someone with the last name of Cullen, that he has a huge shadow that he has to overcome. He will have to live up to the expectations that his father set after playing quarterback in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals, and those of his brother who recently won the state championship at his high school as a senior and is now the starting quarterback at Texas University. He enters the season as the third string quarterback for the state championship defending Granger Cowboys. In the first game of the season, the starting quarterback tears his ACL on just the third play of the game to end his senior season. Now having lost a quarterback, Jake moves up to the second string and races behind Casey Lindell for the starting position. After the starter-Tim Mathers- suffers this devastating injury, the team cannot recover and loses despite Jake getting in the game after Casey threw several interceptions. As the weeks move on, Jake competes with Casey for the starting quarterback position and as he thinks for his crush, Sarah Rayburn. Jake also gets a depression feeling about the season because his father continues to favor his brother Wyatt and skip out on Jake`s games to watch Wyatt`s games instead. After competing with Casey each week, winning each game, and continuing to fight for his fathers attention, Casey tries to start a fight with Jake and gets heated up about the starting position. Jake is the bigger man and just walks away to stop the fight from getting physical. After he walks out, Sarah comes over to him and says that he did the right thing, she says that Casey looked stupid and Jake was the smart one in that situation... As the weeks go on, Jake beats out Casey for the starting position and leads the Granger Cowboys in their hot pursuit for the playoffs. In the last week of the regular season the Cowboys must win to make the playoffs. They fight in an intense game and on their last drive Jake`s best friend-Barrett "Bear" Bryant- intercepts the opposing team`s quarterback to give the ball back to Granger with a chance to win the game. Jake brings them down the field and on fourth down as time runs out he scores a touchdown by diving and extending the ball across the goal line while getting hit by a defender. He suffers a concussion on the play but puts his team into the playoffs. Unfortunately, he is unable to play the next week so Casey must play the entire game. Casey sneaks by and helps give them the victory to put them into the State Championship. In the championship, Jake puts them into a tie at the near end of the game. To win the game, they do a trick play where Casey comes in a throw a deep pass to Jake to score the game winning touchdown and win the State Championship. After the game Sarah comes up and gives him a hug and a kiss, also his dad who after talking with Jake consistently comes to his games, congratulates him on the win. THE END.