Homestead QB Joshua Townsend is Miami-Dade County Offensive Player of the Year for 4M-3M
Every morning throughout football season, Homestead’s players would get the same sort of text from Joshua Townsend.
“C’mon, boys, let’s get it today,” would be the gist and the quarterback would send along the Broncos’ schedule for the day.
For Homestead to go from doormat to state-championship contender, the Broncos needed someone to set the tone and Townsend became the leader they were hoping to find. It’s part of why he’s the Miami Herald’s Miami-Dade County Offensive Player of the Year for Classes 4M-3M.
The other part is the actual results he produced on the field in Homestead. As a junior, Townsend went 106 of 183 for 2,038 yard and 23 touchdowns, and added 435 yard and six more touchdowns on 50 carries, to lead the Broncos the Class 3M championship for their first ever trip to a state title game. His value was most obvious, though, when he was out of the lineup.
In the middle of the season, Townsend missed one game, plus parts of two more, and Homestead struggled. The Broncos got a too-close-for-comfort win against South Miami in the game Townsend exited with an injury, then lost to Columbus the next week when Homestead decided Townsend wasn’t quite ready to go after just a few drives and then lost to Southridge a week later with Townsend out altogether.
Once Townsend returned, the Broncos won six in a row to get to their first state championship, where they lost 38-21 to St. Thomas Aquinas. Even then, Homestead was only the second team all year to score more than 14 points on the Raiders, who finished the season at No. 6 in MaxPreps’ national rankings.
“We was definitely out on a boat with no paddle, trying to find direction,” said former coach Philip Simpson, who left Homestead after the season to become a defensive quality control coach for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. “When he came back, it was like a relief for everybody because we had our leader back.”
Even after the season ended, Townsend kept leading.
It’s no secret what happens in South Florida when coaches leave, especially for an upstart team like the Broncos: Players tend to follow. The transfer market is just as wild in Florida high school football as it is in college football and Homestead now has to make sure a departing coach won’t mean a mass exodus of players, too.
Once again, the Broncos believe Townsend will be part of the solution. On the day after Homestead lost the state championship, Townend took to Twitter to promise he “will be back.”
“I promise that,” he wrote.
After guiding the Broncos to new heights, Townsend has one more year to make even more history at Homestead.
“You can enjoy the moment, you can enjoy the wins, you can enjoy the losses, you can enjoy whatever you go through, but the true reflection is when you leave the program and whether you see it grow or dismantle. It says a lot about the pulse that we had in that building,” Simpson said. “The kids stayed intact. Josh made it clear on social media he’s staying intact. It’s good for him. It shows commitment, it shows loyalty and it shows how much he fell in love with the program.”
This story was originally published January 17, 2023 at 7:30 AM.