Move over, Bills mafia: Josh Allen’s biggest fans hail from small California town [Los Angeles Times]
The earth is dead-level flat here, as unwavering as a Johnny Unitas haircut, an endless quilt of farmland that produces cotton, wheat, grapes, melons and pistachios. In normal times, on a given fall night, you can stand in one tiny town and see the glow of the football field in the next, from Kerman to Tranquility to Mendota; Firebaugh to Dos Palos to Los Banos.
Ribbons of two-lane roads and generations of bitter rivalries separate the farming communities of the San Joaquin Valley, where local sports border on religion and high school heroics harden into lore. Yet these days, these elbowing towns feel as one, with everyone pulling in the same direction, the Hatfields proudly linking arms with the McCoys.