EUGENE, Ore. — Marcus Arroyo discovered the loose-leafed book tucked into a binder at the bottom of a cardboard box.



He was a first-year football assistant at San Jose State when longtime coach John Ralston, who was working as a special assistant at SJSU at the time, dropped the box off at Arroyo’s desk.



“I’m sure it was one of those things that most coaches do, they hand a young kid a binder or a bunch of stuff and say, ‘Hey, I don’t know if there’s anything here, but maybe there’s something you’d like,’ ” Arroyo said.



At first glance, the book just looked like a West Coast playbook, but the interior pages were unlike any playbook Arroyo had ever seen. There were pages upon pages of detailed quarterback read sheets, every one of them dated with cursive penmanship. Arroyo had been a great note taker all his life, but he had never seen anything like this.



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