High school football: Playmaker Breyahn Townsend leads Bremen to first playoff berth in five years

Allen Cunningham/For the Sun-Times

Breyahn Townsend wasn’t exactly all-in on football when he was growing up.

“My mom tried to get me on a team when I was little,” the Bremen senior said. “[But] I was a [video] game kid, so I didn’t really like to be outside.”Nonetheless, he did go to a youth football tryout. 

“I was actually good,” Townsend said. “I was catching the ball, running, doing everything. I was faster than most all of the kids.”

But that was the end of it. Townsend resisted his mom’s pleas to stick with football.

“I was a homebody,” he said.

Townsend did get into sports later. 

“When I was in middle school, I actually wasn’t planning on playing football because it wasn’t my thing,” he said. “I was a basketball person. But then my friends kind of inspired me: ‘You should play football.’ ‘Ah, I don’t know.’ And then I gave it a try.”

So he did his freshman year, and he scored five touchdowns against Tinley Park.

“This is my thing right here and I love it,” he remembers thinking.

Three years later, it’s clear football is Townsend’s thing. The 5-10, 170-pounder is the centerpiece for the Braves, who have earned their third straight IHSA playoff berth after a five-year drought. Bremen also has defeated TF South for the first time in eight years and Hillcrest for the first time in seven years.

Townsend has contributed in every phase of the game. He’s returned a kickoff for a touchdown and had double-digit tackles as a cornerback on defense. But he’s made the biggest impact on offense. Through seven games, he was averaging 16 yards a carry on 65 attempts for 1,042 yards and 13 touchdowns. He had 1,398 all-purpose yards — 199.7 per game — with 17 TDs.

“We knew early on he was a special talent, but he was so inexperienced,” Bremen coach Dan Stell said. “We knew he just needed some time, some reps to work his way through the program.”

It didn’t help that Townsend’s sophomore year featured just a pandemic-delayed and shortened spring season. He showed flashes in the fall 2021 season, according to Stell. But the breakthrough came over the winter and spring.

“It was more of him really committing himself to his offseason conditioning, buckling down in the classroom,” Stell said. “He really matured over the last nine months. And when he came to camp this year, you could tell that he was ready to go — physically, and emotionally, he was on point.

“We knew in the first two practices he was going to have a real special year. But each week he just seems to keep evolving.”

What sets Townsend apart from other backs?

“He sets up his runs by making a defender commit to a direction and then he can almost make a cut mid-stride that separates him from most of the athletes that we’ve had here in a long time,” Stell said.

It doesn’t hurt that Bremen, which was averaging 360 rushing yards through seven games, has two other talented backs. Dion Debrue also is a speed option, while Keshawn Lewis-Hunt, the team leader in carries, gets the hard yards up the middle.

“They’re dogs,” Townsend said. “Dion is my boy, we do everything together. ‘Ke,’ same thing with him. ... We feed off each other’s energy.”

Allen Cunningham/For the Sun-Times

Partly because he doesn’t have much football experience — it’s even less because of the pandemic — recruiters have been slow to catch up to Townsend. He has an offer from NAIA Graceland (Iowa), made a visit to Northern Illinois earlier this month, and is working to get more attention. Staying on point academically is part of the equation.

“Making sure I’m staying on top of that because I understand that I can actually do something with this,” Townsend said. “I had to learn that I’ve got to focus more on school and take this stuff more seriously.”

Whatever college signs Townsend will be getting a rough diamond, Stell believes.

“He’s just so humble,” Stell said. “He’s just a genuine good kid.”