An impromptu game film exchange occurred early Thursday morning off of I-80 between San Francisco and Sacramento. The meeting place was the Nut Tree, a legendary pit stop restaurant with a landscaped carnival environment.

"There is nothing like an early morning game film exchange at the Nut Tree", Sac Valley Football and Basketball Coach Duke Dornfeld told Griff on the telephone.

Griff was not familiar with D3 early morning game film exchanges midpoint between two campuses. It was only a few days to the game, and the last time he had breakfast at the Nut Tree was when he was playing for the Raiders, a time when things happened that ended with roadside breakfasts. But the drive to Vacaville was shorter than it might have been because after taking Caydance out to a Marina District pub dinner, he spent another night in her San Francisco studio.

Nut Tree tables and chairs were a design mix of 1950's era roadside restaurant and Silicon Valley cafeteria. Across a table loaded with big coffees and cream-filled doughnuts, Coach Griff McGuire passed Coach Dornfeld (after last year’s basketball playoffs, known as "The Duke" in the Sacramento Valley) a video cassette that contained the only game film he had: Huygens vs Humboldt. In return, Coach Dornfeld passed Griff a video cassette that contained film of Sac Valley's opening game.

At a nearby table, out of town tourists, who were not familiar with Nut Tree game film exchanges, eyed rumpled looking men exchanging unmarked cassettes and considered calling the cops.