Terrell Johnson made two big plays for Curie in a 54-34 win over Lake View on Oct. 16, but he deflected the credit for both.
Johnson, a senior better known as “Peanut” by his teammates and coaches, ran a kickoff back 75 yards for a touchdown and had an interception — both in the fourth quarter — as the Condors (7-1, 5-1 Public North) won at Rockne Stadium.
“I just saw green field,” Johnson said of the kickoff return. “To be honest, my boy Darius Townsel, No. 12, he set a great block for me. I couldn’t have done it without my brothers.
“They’re my brothers for life.”
Johnson credited a head’s up from his coaches on the interception.
“The pick — to be honest, I don’t even know what happened in my head,” he said. “They just said, ‘Peanut, coming at you.’ I said, ‘OK, cool.’
“And then I set my feet, the play went around and I’m like, ‘OK, cool, this is my ball, I’m gonna get that.’ And then everything happened at one time and I got the ball. So I really thank my coaches and my defensive coordinator, Coach (Jarve Lewis-)Bey for allowing me to have the opportunity to catch that ball.”
Lewis-Bey wasn’t surprised by Johnson’s big plays.
“I keep telling Coach Keenan (Phillips-Riley) to put that boy in offense, but he won’t do it,” Lewis-Bey said jokingly. “But yeah, an exceptional football player, exceptional. We needed every bit of it today.”
The Condors also needed Gabriel Taylor back at quarterback, and they got that, too.
The senior missed two full games with an injury and only played a few snaps in Week 7 before getting hurt again.
But against Lake View, he showed off his game-changing ability. Taylor had three carries for 166 yards, including 96- and 32-yard TD runs. He also completed a 31-yard pass.
“That man is athletic,” Johnson said. “He moves with a passion, he’s got confidence in the pocket.”
Curie also had productive nights on offense from Townsel, Dream Horton and Malik Horton. Townsel ran seven times for 52 yards and TDs of 4 and 39 yards, while Malik Horton had 81 yards and a 24-yard TD on nine runs. Dream Horton finished with two carries for 51 yards, including a 45-yard score.
Taylor wasn’t sure he’d score on the 96-yard run.
“To be honest, I thought I was gonna get caught because of my (ailing) ankle,” he said. “… Once I got to their 40, I was gone.”
Even if Taylor doesn’t get a lot of carries, just the threat of him running keeps opposing defenses honest.
“Early in the season, teams didn’t see me run a lot because we didn’t use me (that way),” Taylor said. “But now that we do have me in those formations where I get the ball maybe (once) or twice, I create something.”
He does the same thing with his arm.
“We haven’t passed well this year — if we even passed at all,” Lewis-Bey said. “Everybody’s expecting us to run so they jam the box on us. We have to be able to pass. And (Taylor) stepped up today and was able to throw the ball.”