It's been 18 years of kidding and roughhousing each other.
So, it comes as no surprise a season-opening football game between lifelong friends Daryll Clark and Alex Allen would change that.
"I get a lot of subliminal messages on Twitter from his Akron boys," Clark said. "One of 'em said, 'Be sure to tell your friends, your family, your fans to tune into the Big Ten Network on Sept. 5, high noon, cause it's gonna be the biggest upset in college football history.'
"I sit there and look at that and am like, OK, whatever. We'll see. It is what it is."
He knows Allen, Akron's starting running back and his best friend, is the one initiating the friendly trash talk. But on Saturday, both are rooting for each other from opposite sidelines as the other plays the sport that interlaced their friendship.
"Alex really loved the game," Clark said. "That's how we stayed close, stayed tight."
***
Allen has to compose himself when reminiscing about a grade-school-aged Clark.
"This dude, oh my goodness," Allen said. "Some of the noises he would make."
In sixth grade, Clark always ragged a teacher named Mr. Wilson about his car.
"He drove a red, small, four-door, and he clowned him about it," Allen said. "He'd say, 'Mr. Wilson, how's your jalopy doing?' "
Clark takes no shame in his persona at school.
"I was always the class clown," Clark said. "I wasn't afraid to admit it. I was the one always getting into trouble, making crazy noises, distracting somebody and just being disruptive all the time. Everybody had their clown moments. As a kid you have your certain cliques with your certain friends. Him and his older brother I was really cool with."
Living around the corner from each other meant the two were rarely separated.
The two played video games, backyard football and frequently slept over at each other's houses. Clark's mom and Allen's dad went to high school together, and both fathers coached their sons on the East Side Broncos, a youth football team in Youngstown, Ohio.
"Me and him have been jokesters, goofy guys, clown guys off the field for as long as I can remember," Clark said. "We had our own little world. You ask anybody back at home, they'll tell you."
But when Allen is on the field, he switches gears, Clark said.
"Like straight up, serious. He's definitely focused on the game. He runs the ball really, really hard. He definitely can run you over, and he has a mean stiff-arm. But I've seen him set up a couple guys and actually shake 'em out of their shoes."
***
Walking home from school one day, moments after the crossing guard, Jamie Duck, safely guided 6-year-old Clark and his friends across the street, Allen and Clark got in a heated argument and started shoving each other.
"We started yapping, and I grabbed him by his jacket and swung him around and slammed him," Allen said.
"We were pushing, and it got heated," Clark said. "He picked me up. Boom! Slammed me in front of everybody.
"And when I got slammed, you know what the next reaction from everybody is."
Clark paused.
"Ohhhhh!
"I tried to get him back, but he took off running, and I was mad about that because everybody was like, 'Man, Alex slammed you.' I couldn't catch him because he was a really fast dude, too. I wasn't gonna chase him all the way home."
Allen said he could see Clark getting mad while he was on the ground.
"When I slammed him, I'm like, 'He's mad, for real.' I jetted," he said.
Now, Clark joked he might share that story in the locker room.
"That might be a comment I share with [the defense] before the game," Clark said.
" 'Man, as a kid, he slammed me. He embarrassed me in front of everybody. Right in front of the chicks, too.' "
About a year later, a 95-pound Clark got his friend back after a youth football practice.
"I don't know what stirred it up," Clark said. "I caught him this time, jabbed him right in the stomach.
"Knocked the wind out of him, and he was like, 'Oh, oh, man, man," Clark said in a shrill, weakened voice. "I took off running, so he wouldn't catch me."
Allen collapsed and started crying because he had asthma.
"It was a shoving contest," Clark said. "He may have swung at me, and I ducked and went, boom!, right in the stomach, actually harder than I wanted to, and I knocked the wind out of him.
"His brother saw and comes sprinting toward me. I accidentally knocked the wind out of him, but I got him. It kind of felt good."
***
Like any friendship, competition runs ramped -- be it the virtual world of video games or in real life.
By Clark's count, he has a .980 winning percentage against Allen in NBA 2K9. In Madden, Allen's Steelers and Clark's Vikings trade wins.
"I'm definitely making fun of you when we're playing the game and I'm whooping his behind," Allen said. "I'm saying something about his game."
When Clark and Allen reunite in Youngstown, they playfully let their dogs, which are from the same litter, get rough with each other.
"He tells me how his dog's tougher than mine, and they always fight and everything," Clark said. "My dog will pin his, and I'll say, 'Yeah, what's up now."
When given the chance, they'll rag on each other. One's sensitive, the other's a "Momma's Boy."
"That boy's sensitive," Allen said. "You say the wrong thing, he's sensitive. If I'm sitting there joking around and I'll tell him to shut up, I laugh about it. But he'll be like, 'Oh, man, don't talk to me like that."
When Allen's phone goes to voicemail, his mother's voice directs callers to leave a message.
But instead of signifying an inseparable relationship with his mom, Allen said the phone used to belong to his mother, and he never changed the voice greeting so girls he doesn't want calling him don't bother him.
***
Illinois coach Ron Zook paid Allen a visit at Ursuline High School, in Youngstown, the summer before his senior year.
Clark, paying a visit to his former high school, comes down the steps inside the school as Zook, Allen and his coaches are discussing Allen's potential as a featured back in Champaign, Ill.
"[Clark] comes down the steps with a giddy ol' face," Allen said. "I couldn't help but laugh."
When Zook left, Allen's coaches thought him laughing was inexcusable, that he needed to mature if he was serious about football.
"From that point on, I really locked down," Allen said.
That fall, Allen became the only Ursuline tailback to rush for 2,000 yards in a season.
"I already told Sean [Lee] and the rest of the defense about how big the kid is and how physical he can get at running back," Clark said.
After all, film is at a premium with Allen, who's barely played in four seasons, fighting knee and hip injuries.
The medial and anterior cruciate ligament tears he suffered in his right knee while in the thick of the starting tailback race his sophomore year was nearly unbelievable.
In a scrimmage the first week of practice, Allen broke three tackles and rushed to the one-yard line, then punched it in on the next play.
As the team huddled up before running sprints to end practice, two linemen were horsing around and Allen heard a pop as a lineman collided into his extended leg.
"Any type of injury like that can be real heavy to your mind," Clark said. "Then, when you finally get back, you're worried about pressing off that knee or playing off that hip. His parents made sure he stayed prayerful.
"He was always a confident kid. Nothing got him down. He was always going to come back if something didn't go his way or we didn't win. He never really dwelled on bad stuff, maybe for a couple minutes or a half hour."
Faith was rooted in both men's lives. Allen's brother is a minister in Youngstown, and Allen posts a scripture verse on Twitter almost every day. As ninth graders, their studies extended into the night.
"I'd be at my place. He'd be at his," Clark said. "We'll call on the phone. I had a Bible. He had a Bible, and we'd read over the phone. We both went to a private Catholic school, so we know where to look for stuff in the Bible.
"He was a guy who would help me translate. I always had a hard time understanding what the words meant, and he always seemed to understand that."
***
Saturday is the first time the two will be on opposing sidelines in the sport they love. Even when Clark moved across town, the two never faced each other on the gridiron because their schools were in different leagues. Allen is unsure if he'll walk out to midfield and shake Clark and Lee's hands at the coin toss. But afterward, Clark said he will find him among the throng of Blue Band members, media members and football players.
"I'm looking forward to it," Allen said.
"I'm ready to get back on the field. That's my best friend."
