By Tim Gayle
It was a simple run up the middle, but it changed the look of the fourth Red Tails Classic for the remainder of the game.
Johnson C. Smith tailback Quavaris Crouch took a handoff on the first play of the second half and sprinted through a huge hole on the way to the end zone 75 yards away, breaking a 7-7 tie and lifting the Golden Bulls to a 21-13 win over Tuskegee on Sunday night at Cramton Bowl.
“That was a big momentum changer,” Tuskegee coach Aaron James said. “We had a missed assignment there, a blown assignment. The running back went straight up the middle, up the ‘A’ gap and scored a touchdown. Coming out of the half, you know, that should never happen.”
James is correct, but Crouch would go on to rush for 48 more yards in the fourth quarter that helped seal the win, part of a 161-yard night that earned the senior Most Valuable Player honors in his long-awaited return to college football.
“It feels awesome,” Crouch said. “I thank God because I never knew I was going to put a jersey on again.”
Back in what almost seems like a lifetime ago, Crouch was considered the top college prospect in America, a five-star running back and linebacker that had lifted his Harding High team to a state championship in 2017. Tennessee won the recruiting battle and Crouch played as a linebacker for the Volunteers in 2019 and started 10 games in 2020. As questions arose concerning the program and coach Jeremy Pruitt, Crouch jumped in the transfer portal and went to play for Mel Tucker at Michigan State in 2021.
Now it was Tucker who was on the hot seat regarding off-the-field issues following the 2021 season and Crouch jumped in the transfer portal again, but never really landed. He came back to Charlotte in 2022 and 2023, finding a job and taking community college courses before trying his hand, one last time, this season at Johnson C. Smith, now as a running back.
Crouch matched his first-half rushing total with a 15-yard run late in the first half to give the Golden Bulls an apparent lead, but it was nullified by a holding penalty. A missed field goal followed and the two teams were tied at 7-7 at the half. So far, Crouch had done little to remind anyone of the talent that made him a five-star recruit.
That all changed with his first carry of the second half.
“I feel like the biggest thing I was telling myself is to stay patient,” he said. “At first, I felt like it was moving slow, I wasn’t hitting it like I wanted to, but keep pressing, keep communicating with the offensive line and the coaches, trust in the process, everything we said we would do, and it started hitting for us.”
It’s been five years since he played any running back, but every good runner knows where to deliver the credit for his touchdown.
“The offensive line,” he said. “You can’t do nothing without the offensive line. They always take care of me and keep me healthy. I feel like we’ve got a good group.”
His 161 yards were the second most in the four-year history of the Red Tails Classic, trailing only Emanuel Wilson, now with the Green Bay Packers. Wilson was a tailback coached by Johnson C. Smith coach Maurice Flowers when Flowers was at Fort Valley State. Now Flowers has another talented running back who shook off a slow start with a dominant second half.
“We just knew that we weren’t playing our best ball in the first half,” Crouch said. “In the second half, we put it together, put on more steam. Just like the Clemson-Georgia game that was kind of close in the first half, in the second half Georgia came and pushed it on out. So we were just trying to follow the example they gave us.”
