Invictus

[Captain Canada]

Syracuse WR Zane Jones expected to enter transfer portal

By Sterling Sawchuk
November 30, 2026

Despite the university reaffirming their backing of head coach Fran Brown for the upcoming 2027 season, the Syracuse Orange is expected to be taking two major losses to their wide receiver corps after it was announced that star freshman wide receiver Zane Jones is heavily expected to be entering the transfer portal. Junior wide receiver Johntay Cook II also declared for the upcoming NFL Draft, foregoing his final year of eligibility.

Jones often cited a positive relationship with Coach Brown and the Syracuse staff, but he has clearly defined himself as a top-tier talent and blue chip prospect. With the Orange struggling to a 5-7 season, it is slowly becoming a foregone conclusion that Jones will enter the portal for greener pastures. Same goes for Cook II, who is expected to try his hand at the next level.

Several teams have been linked to Jones already, including Michigan, Miami, and Texas A&M. The Wolverines pursued Jones hard out of high school, when Jones was starring for Upper St. Clair in Pittsburgh, PA as a four-star wide receiver. It is within reason that schools like Pittsburgh and Penn State will also be in the race to bring the wide receiver back home.

Jones is presumed to be the best wide receiver hopping into the transfer portal this off-season and figures to get paid as such . With Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith setting the current benchmark for wide receivers at a reported $5 million, Jones features to approach that number - and depending on where he ends up - might even exceed it. He managed to finish third in Fred Biletnikoff Award as the nation's top wide receiver, losing to Smith and his 102 catches, 1,460 receiving yards, and 14 touchdowns.

Jones, recently named the Shaun Alexander Award recipient, presented annually to the best freshman player of the year in college football, racked up 97 catches, 1,390 receiving yards, and 12 touchdowns in 12 games with the Orange, finishing top five in all three categories in the nation. He earned All-ACC First Team honors and finished as a freshman All-American. He narrowly beat Ohio State's Chris Henry Jr. and Colorado's Julian Lewis for the award.

Losing his top two offensive weapons, Fran Brown will certainly have his work cut out for him to field a team capable of competing in the ACC next season. Retaining the likes of quarterback Ajani Sheppard and running back Yasin Wills will certainly help, but Brown is going to need some big wins to fill the wide receiver room.

[redsox907]

Penn State

[Soapy]

[Captain Canada]

Penn State

[Captain Canada]

Season VI | Episode 9 - Landslide

The house looked like it had been abandoned years ago and simply forgotten by the city. The windows were grimy, one of them patched over with plywood, and the siding peeled off in strips that hung loose like old skin. Inside, it was worse.

The living room smelled like mildew, stale smoke, and wet wood, the kind of odor that clung to your clothes long after you left. The floorboards sagged beneath the mismatched furniture, and the weak yellow light from a standing lamp in the corner barely reached the walls. The cold had settled into the house so deeply that it felt permanent, creeping through every crack and seam.

A group of men sat scattered through the room, all of them looking like they belonged there - rough, worn-down, and dangerous in ways that didn’t need announcing.

One man was crouched in front of the busted heater against the far wall, screwdriver in hand, pulling at wires and metal panels with a kind of reckless frustration that made it look less like he was fixing it and more like he was trying to kill it. Every clang of metal against metal echoed through the room.

Across from him, a burly man sat heavy in a ripped armchair, a cigarette hanging from his lips. His thick forearms rested on his knees, his white tank top stained and yellowing at the collar. He watched the man at the heater for a moment before barking across the room.

“Get the fucking heat on already.”

The man bent over the heater froze for a second. Slowly, he turned his head over his shoulder, eyes narrowed like he’d been waiting for someone to say something stupid.

“You wanna bring your big ass over here and do it yourself?” he asked. “See how quick you get electrocuted?”

The burly man stared at him.

“Or,” the man continued, turning back to the heater, “you can shut the fuck up and let me work.”

On the couch nearby, a black man with muddy boots propped on the coffee table sucked his teeth and shook his head. His parka was still zipped halfway up, the fur lining around the hood brushing the back of his neck every time he moved.

“It ain’t like you’re gonna fix the fucker anyway.”

The man at the heater muttered something under his breath and kept working, tightening something that clearly wasn’t helping.

The black man folded his arms over his chest and shifted his eyes toward the burly man.

“So what’s the plan?”

The burly man took a long drag from his cigarette, the cherry glowing orange in the dim room. He let the smoke roll from his mouth slow before squinting across at him.

“What plan?”

The black man frowned.

He leaned forward, his boots dropping heavily from the table onto the floor.

“The plan,” he repeated. “When are we going to slide for Tom.”

The burly man breathed out a humorless laugh.

“First off,” he said, pointing the cigarette at him, “keep that negro shit to yourself and speak American.”

The black man’s face hardened instantly.

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

The burly man shrugged.

“You said slide. What the fuck’s sliding? Like a slip-n-slide you pussy?”

The black man snapped.

“Man, shut the fuck up with all that racist shit.”

His voice sharpened, carrying through the room. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees now, eyes serious.

“Tom was the link. He was the one keeping the money moving. And now his ass is dead.”

That settled over the room heavier than the cold. The man at the heater gave it one hard kick, rattling the whole unit before exhaling in defeat. He straightened up, wiping grease onto his jeans.

“And we don’t even know who we’re looking for,” he said.

The black man shrugged.

“We know it was some white kid Tom had been hanging around recently. My girl Tonya told me she even saw him go by The Rig that night..”

The man by the heater shook his head.

“Apparently the kid looked scared shitless.”

He crossed his arms.

“That don’t sound like someone who handled it alone.”

The black man tilted his head. “Or maybe it was his first body.”

The burly man suddenly coughed, open-mouthed and violent, spitting a thick wad of phlegm onto the rotting floor beside his chair. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked between them.

“Reggie’s right.”

The room quieted.

The man at the heater - Stuart - lifted his eyes.

The burly man tapped ash into an overflowing tray.

“Tom was one of ours.” His voice was lower now. More deliberate. “And whoever did him fucked up our process.”

There was no sentiment in it. No grief.

The burly man looked toward Stuart and jerked his chin.

“Put word out.”

Stuart frowned. “For the kid?”

The burly man nodded once. “Yeah.”

He leaned back into the chair, smoke curling from his nostrils as his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“Find him.”

And in the dead cold of that collapsing house, with the heater still busted and the room sinking deeper into silence, the shape of what came next began to settle over them all. Whatever had happened to Tom wasn’t going to end with Tom. It was just the beginning.

***

Zane had sat in the hospital chapel with his elbows pressed into his knees and his hands folded together so tightly that his knuckles had gone pale. His eyes stayed fixed on the figure of Jesus Christ hanging from the cross at the front of the room, the dim glow of candlelight and low overhead fixtures painting the wooden pews in soft gold.

The chapel was spacious enough, built to feel open and comforting, but somehow it had the opposite effect on him. The air felt thick, suffocating, like he was trying to breathe through wet cloth.

Every inhale came with effort. He wasn’t praying - not really. The thought had crossed his mind more than once since he had gotten to Pittsburgh, but prayer had always belonged more to his grandparents than to him. Mary and Felix had lived by faith, leaned on it through every hardship, every loss, every impossible thing life had thrown at them.

Zane had never quite known how to do that. Still, there was something about the room that held him in place. It was quiet here, removed from the endless beeping of machines, the hurried footsteps of nurses, the smell of antiseptic and sickness. Out there, in the rest of the hospital, reality was too loud. Too sharp. The hospital branded itself as a place of healing, of hope, but Zane knew better.

In these walls, people died. Families broke apart. Futures got rewritten without warning. Here, grief came to feed.

He stared at the cross and thought about how quickly everything had fallen apart. Just days ago, he had been in Syracuse, worried about football, arguing with Ajani, wondering where he would transfer next.

Normal things. Young things.

Now all of that felt so far away it may as well have belonged to somebody else. Now his grandmother was lying unconscious upstairs, his father had reappeared like a ghost with blood and secrets trailing behind him, and the people from every fractured piece of his life kept showing up in the same hallway like fate was forcing them all into collision. His jaw tightened.

He rubbed his palms together and exhaled hard through his nose, trying to settle the pressure building in his chest.

The chapel door cracked open behind him, the old hinges groaning softly. Zane looked over his shoulder, irritation flickering for a second at the interruption, but it vanished the moment he saw Bianca standing there.

Her head poked through the doorway first, her eyes scanning the room until they landed on him. She paused like she hadn’t been sure he’d actually be there. Then she took one grounding breath, stepped inside, and gently shut the door behind her.

Zane turned back toward the altar, but he could feel her standing there for a second, gathering herself. When she finally moved, her footsteps were soft against the carpet. She slid into the pew beside him, careful to leave enough room between them for comfort - or distance. He wasn’t sure which.

For a long time, neither of them said anything. Bianca sat with her hands folded in her lap, her shoulders tight, her eyes fixed ahead. Zane could practically feel the tension radiating off her. He knew she was turning over a thousand possible openings in her mind, searching for the right one. He silently begged her not to say any of them. He didn’t have the strength for it - not here, not now. But silence had never stayed between them for long.

Bianca cleared her throat, her voice quiet enough to belong in the room. “Should we talk now?”

Zane let out a breath and shrugged, his eyes still on the cross. “I don’t think there’s any situation that could be much better than now.”

Bianca opened her mouth, closed it, then tried again. “I was surprised to meet Marie.”

That made Zane roll his eyes, his head falling back against the pew for a second. “The two of you hardly met.”

Bianca shot him a quick look, annoyance flickering in her face. “That’s not what I meant.” Her fingers tightened together in her lap. “I guess I’m just surprised you’re dating.”

That made him shift, leaning further into the wooden bench, turning his head slightly toward her. “Why?”

Her brows furrowed. “Because I thought we agreed we would talk in the fall. When we were both back in Pittsburgh.”

Zane looked at her fully then, motioning around the chapel with one hand before letting it fall back into his lap. His voice came out low, edged with exhaustion. “And here we are. Talking in the fall. Back in Pittsburgh.”

Bianca inhaled slowly through her nose, clearly irritated by how literal he was being. “You know what I mean,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to move on so-”

“You dumped me,” Zane cut in, sharper than he intended. His voice echoed faintly against the chapel walls. He lowered it, but the sting stayed. “You don’t get to be upset because I chose to move on and not wait around for you to want me again.”

“Yes, Zane. The problem with our relationship was certainly that I didn’t want you enough,” she huffed, folding her arms across her chest in a strict defiance. “It’s almost like the days we would go without a meaningful conversation was a moot point.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Zane threw back, shaking his head slightly while keeping his eyes locked on the Jesus model in front of him. “I wasn’t around enough - not like I was occupied moving states and burying my grandfather.”

That shut her up. Bianca’s eyes dropped to the floor between her shoes, her breathing measured and shallow. For a while, the only sound in the room was the low hum of electricity from the lights overhead. Then a humorless little laugh slipped from her throat.

“Do you remember that time your grandma almost caught us having sex in your room?”

The shift was so sudden it caught him off guard. Zane turned his head, and despite himself, the corner of his mouth twitched upward. A small, reluctant smirk. “I’ve never scrambled so fast in my life.”

Bianca smiled faintly, shaking her head. “There’s no way Mary didn’t know.”

Zane shrugged. “If she did, she never said anything.”

Bianca adjusted herself on the pew, crossing one leg over the other as she leaned back. “She definitely gave me a look when I left that night. Like, a knowing look.”

That made him lift an eyebrow. “Really?”

She nodded, almost smiling to herself. “Really.”

The memory softened the room for a moment, dragging both of them backward into a simpler version of themselves. Back before college, before distance, before grief had hollowed Zane out and pride had driven Bianca away. For a few moments, they sat in that silence again, but this one was different. Less hostile. More familiar.

Then Bianca spoke again, so softly Zane almost thought he imagined it.

“I love you.”

He turned his head slightly toward her, catching the vision of her face in his peripheral vision.

Her eyes stayed fixed ahead, but her hands were trembling now in her lap.

“I never stopped loving you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I just wanted you to know that.”

Zane stared at her, the words landing heavy in his chest, mixing with everything else already weighing him down. He searched her face, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with that now - here, in this place, with Mary upstairs fighting for her life and Marie waiting somewhere else in the hospital and his whole world splitting at the seams. But there was no answer. Not yet.

After a long while, all he could do was nod.

And so they sat there together in the dim chapel, beneath the watchful shadow of the cross, surrounded by grief, history, and everything they still hadn’t figured out. Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke again. For the first time in what felt like forever, they simply existed in the same silence, letting the weight of it settle between them.

***

Mary sat alone in a Catholic church, dwarfed by its towering architecture. High-arching windowpanes stretched toward a magnificently woven wooden roof, each beam crafted with the kind of care that made the place feel eternal.

The morning light filtered through the stained glass, splintering reds, blues, and golds across the polished floor. It was beautiful in a way that made her chest ache - intricate enough to inspire awe, humble enough to feel intimate. The kind of place Felix had always loved. Mary moved slowly down the center aisle, her fingers brushing over the tops of the pews as she passed them, letting the cool wood graze against her skin.

It grounded her, reminded her that she was still here. Still breathing. Still carrying more weight than she thought a body could hold.


She slid into a pew near the front on the right side, lowering herself carefully, folding her hands together in her lap. Her joints felt heavier than they used to, her bones carrying exhaustion like they’d soaked it in over years of grief and worry.

Her lips moved under her breath in a prayer so quiet it barely existed. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The words felt familiar, automatic even, but this time they lingered. She lifted her eyes toward the altar, toward the monument of Christ hanging above it, arms stretched wide, face cast downward in endless suffering. For a long while, she just stared.

Then her breath trembled and she spoke into the silence, into whatever void might have been listening.

She admitted she was tired.

Not the kind of tired sleep could fix. The kind that settled into marrow, that made waking up every morning feel like lifting stones off her chest. She told Him she felt it in her bones every day now.

This grief He had placed upon her - Felix gone, Rasheed lost to a life she could never save him from, Zane carrying pain too big for someone so young - it had hollowed her out piece by piece.

She wanted to be present for her grandson. She wanted to be there for Zane, especially now, when his world seemed to be cracking open at every seam. She wanted to make up for all the years she had lost with Rasheed, the years prison had stolen from both of them. But sitting there in that pew, under the weight of all of it, she wondered if she had failed them both long before life had gotten cruel.

Her thoughts turned inward, sharp and merciless. Maybe she should have been stricter with Rasheed when he was young. Maybe she had loved him too softly when he needed harder edges. Or maybe she had overcorrected with Zane - shielded him too much, protected him from the ugly parts of life until the world hit him all at once.

Either way, the result felt the same. Her family fractured. Her heart splintered. Her eyes welled with tears as the weight of it all pressed down on her, and for the first time in a long while, Mary let herself feel it fully.

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

Warm. Familiar.

She looked up, and there he was.

Felix.

He wore the same grease-stained work clothes he always kept for the garage, the ones he wore when he knew he’d be crawling under cars and getting his hands dirty. His face looked younger somehow, freer from pain, but unmistakably him. He knelt beside her so they were eye level, his knees pressing into the hardwood floor.

He smiled at her - soft, sweet, the same smile that had steadied her through decades of life together.

He told her she had fought hard enough.

That she had been a wonderful wife.

A wonderful matriarch.

Mary broke then, tears spilling freely as she laughed through them, shaking her head as she looked at him. She muttered that his knees had to be throbbing from kneeling there so long. Felix laughed too, that deep familiar chuckle that used to fill their kitchen late at night, and shook his head. He reached for her hand, his palm rough and warm, and helped her to her feet.

He told her he felt good. Better than he had in a long time.

Then he turned and started walking toward the church doors, sunlight spilling through the cracks at the entrance like something waiting on the other side. Mary followed for a few steps before panic struck her. She reached out, grabbing his arm tightly, her fingers digging in like if she let go he’d disappear again.

Her voice cracked when she told him she couldn’t live without him.

Felix stopped. He turned back and searched her eyes, slow and deliberate, like he was reading every wound she’d carried since he’d been gone. There was no judgment there. No frustration. Only understanding. He nodded once, as if to tell her he knew.

Then he leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead.

And together, hand in hand, they walked through the church doors.

...

Zane and Bianca stepped out of the chapel together, the heavy wooden doors closing behind them with a soft groan. The silence between them had shifted - less tense now, but heavier somehow, weighed down by everything that had been said and everything that still hadn’t.

Zane’s mind was still tangled in Bianca’s confession, in the quiet certainty with which she had told him she loved him and never stopped. He hadn’t known what to do with those words, hadn’t known if he even could do anything with them right now.

So they walked side by side through the fluorescent-lit corridor toward Mary’s room, their footsteps soft against the polished floor, neither of them speaking. The farther they walked, the more Zane felt that familiar unease creeping back into his chest, like the universe was reminding him that peace never lasted long.

Then he saw it.

A flood of nurses pushing out of Mary’s room.

The movement was frantic, clustered, too fast to be normal. Their scrubs blurred together in a rush of blue and green as equipment was being wheeled out, hurried voices muttering over one another. Zane slowed for half a beat, his stomach dropping so violently it felt like h had missed a step on a staircase.

He couldn’t quite make out their expressions from the distance, but he didn’t need to. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. He looked over at Bianca, and she was already looking at him, her face pale, her eyes wide with the exact same realization. Fear passed between them in an instant, silent and undeniable.

They broke into a hurried pace.

Not quite running, but close.

By the time they got near the room, Dr. Marisia Gomez was already walking toward them.

She looked different.

Gone was the white lab coat that usually framed her in calm professionalism. Whatever had happened, it had pulled her out of that role and into something more human. The sleeves of her scrubs were rolled slightly, and the tight bun she always kept her hair in had started to come loose at the edges. Sweat slicked the sides of her head, darkening the strands near her temples. Her face looked drained. Tired. But it was her eyes that made Zane stop cold.

Zane stared at her, his own eyes wild now, searching her face for something - hope, reassurance, anything - but there was nothing there to grab onto. His mouth opened, but no words came. His throat had gone dry. His chest felt tight, like someone had cinched rope around his ribs.

Dr. Gomez swallowed hard before speaking.

“I tried to message you,” she said quietly, her voice stripped of its usual steadiness. “But the text didn’t send.”

Zane’s throat worked as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing painfully. His mind raced, trying to connect what she was saying, trying to reject it before it could fully form.

“I - I was in the chapel,” he said, the words thin, almost hollow.

Dr. Gomez nodded slowly, like that explained everything and nothing all at once. Then she reached out and rested her hand gently on his arm, giving it a soft, grounding pat. It was a gesture so small, but it made everything feel more real.

She held his gaze.

“Mary had another blood clot.” The words landed like stones. “One we weren’t able to catch in time.”

Zane felt himself stop breathing, the air getting caught in his gut.

Dr. Gomez’s hand slid slightly on his arm, gripping tighter now, as though she knew his body might give out before his mind could catch up.

“She suffered another stroke,” she continued carefully, each word deliberate, heavy. “And this time, we weren’t able to bring her back.”

For a moment, Zane just stared at her.

The hallway disappeared. The sounds of the hospital - the beeping monitors, the distant pages over the intercom, the squeak of rubber soles against tile - faded into nothing. Bianca beside him vanished. Dr. Gomez’s face blurred. It was as if someone had taken the world and folded it inward until there was only darkness pressing against him from all sides.

Dr. Gomez’s lips moved again.

She was apologizing, telling him they had done all they could but he couldn’t hear it anymore.

His knees threatened to buckle beneath him as the reality crashed into him in pieces too sharp to process all at once. His grandmother - Mary, the woman who had raised him, fought for him, prayed over him, loved him harder than anyone else in his life - was gone.

Just like that.

The blackness swallowed everything.

[djp73]

Can I Zane sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I Zane handle the seasons of my his life?

[Caesar]

And now he’s going wherever WCW is because she’s the only one left who loves him.

[Captain Canada]

Can I Zane sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I Zane handle the seasons of my his life?

Sometimes we learn as a community that sometimes no comment is better than some comments

Good song tho.

And now he’s going wherever WCW is because she’s the only one left who loves him.

I knew your toxic ass was gonna come in here on some shit

[redsox907]

And now he’s going wherever WCW is because she’s the only one left who loves him.

he'll frame it as that's what Mary always wanted.

OR he gonna wild out and become community dick

Meanwhile, Cam gonna get rolled out?

Mary tho. She was a real one.

[djp73]

Sometimes we learn as a community that sometimes no comment is better than some comments