DULUTH — Early in the third quarter in the regular season finale against Hermantown, Duluth Denfeld senior Taye Manns went to the huddle on a mission.
The Hunters trailed 10-6 and the Hawks had contained Manns as well as any team had all season, but the normally quiet and reserved running back let junior quarterback Lee Brooks know what he wanted.
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“Just throw me the ball,” Manns told Brooks.
The coaches had called a run — to Manns — but Brooks called an audible and sent the star back out wide. He found Manns on a route over the middle for a 44-yard touchdown and a 13-10 lead. The Hawks rallied to win 31-19, but Manns still ran for 142 yards and a touchdown, in addition to his receiving score.
“He’s really laid back and chill,” Brooks said. “But the second we get to practice or out on the field, he’s totally different — very confident.”
Away from the field, that confidence can be in short supply. Manns tries to keep himself humble and is wary of seeming “cocky,” but sometimes it feels a little like self-doubt.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m even at that level, competition-wise,” he said. “People tell me I’m good, but what if I’m not as good as they actually say I am.”
Something happens when he steps out on the field and those nagging doubts seem to transform into something completely different.
“I just feel unstoppable,” Manns said.
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Unstoppable might be the appropriate word for Manns in 2024. The area’s only Associated Press All-State selection, Manns ran for 1,897 yards in 10 games and scored 28 touchdowns. He also caught seven passes for 123 yards and three scores. He went over 200 yards in four games this season and was held under 100 only once, a 94-yard performance in a 38-22 win over Cloquet.
He didn’t seek out the spotlight, but it nonetheless found him and now he’s the News Tribune All-Area Player of the Year — whether he likes it or not.
In 2023, Manns broke out with a 74-yard touchdown run and a 76-yard kickoff return for a score in a win over Grand Rapids. He finished with 1,189 yards and 13 touchdowns for a Hunters team that was a surprising 7-2, but 2024 was different, according to Denfeld coach Erik Lofald.
“This year, there was no secret,” he said. “He was the best player in the area and he still put up the numbers he put up. You could try to gameplan against him, but he would find a way. Sometimes it was running the ball, sometimes catching the ball and sometimes it was on defense.”
‘There is no ego’
While Manns has put the Hunters on his back the past two seasons — leading them to consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1997-98 — his ambition isn’t for the spotlight, according to Lofald.
“He just wants to play football,” he said. “That’s all he wants to do, so it’s refreshing that there is no ego. There is nothing about him that is seeking any sort of extracurricular attention. He just wants to ball out and that is really cool — that’s why he’s different, because there is zero drama.”
It all seemed to start in 2022, when the Hunters rallied from down 13 to top Duluth East 20-19. That was the game where the Denfeld coaching staff moved Manns into the backfield. After going winless in 2021, the Hunters won three games and Lofald told offensive coordinator Matt Allen that Manns is “the one.”
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“I remember coming into last season saying we’re going to build everything around Taye,” he said. “He’s going to be the best player in the area and it really started after that East game.”
Still, the Hunters needed someone to “be the standard,” Lofald said, and the Hunter coaching staff challenged Manns. If he wasn’t going to be the “rah-rah guy,” he needed to be an example to everyone else on the team.
“We told him you have to be the hardest working guy in the weight room,” Lofald said. “On the practice field, every rep has to be 100% and that’s what he did.”
In fact, if there was any drama with Manns, it was when coaches had him take a break on the practice field.
“He wasn’t about taking practice plays off,” Lofald said. “He was about taking advantage of every rep he got. The only time we’ve ever argued or he got angry was when I took him out of a rep.”
‘Two or three or four people’
Manns has also turned breaking tackles into something of an art form in his three seasons in the Hunters’ backfield.
Hermantown’s defense likely did the best of any local team holding Manns in check over two games. The Hawks were gang-tackling and making sure the spaces he had to operate in were small, but that is the point, according to Manns.
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“I worked out all summer so just one person can’t take me down,” he said. “It’s going to take two or three or four people to take me down. Normally, when I see one in my head I say, ‘I can’t let him tackle me, you’re going to have to try to hold me’ and hopefully somebody else can make it before I break through.”
Despite the Hawks' strong effort, Manns still gained 350 yards and scored four total touchdowns in the two 2024 matchups.
“The thing about Taye that made him so dangerous is you have to play him every single down,” Lofald said. “He puts so much pressure on you every single play to stop him, because if you don’t, he can break a touchdown from anywhere on the field.”
‘Win as one’
Manns' “raw talent,” according to Brooks, sets him apart from other players, but it’s not just his example or play on the field that made a difference. He, along with seniors like Rajon Gamble, Ryley McKeon and Jack Marshall, have changed the culture of the program during their four years.
All four players were on the winless 2021 team and they’ve accomplished something no Denfeld team has done in more than a quarter-century.
What’s more, they’ve established a “win as one” motto, Brooks said, with those older players taking ownership of the team and making sure the younger players were taking care of their business — keeping their grades up, staying out of trouble and making sure they were available when the time came.
“All of them were really on me — even my sophomore year — about just being smart and staying in the gym,” Brooks said. “They were like, ‘If you’re free and have nothing else to do, what’s the point of not coming to work out?’ They basically kept us together and that’s what made us better.”
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Manns and the 2024 Hunters seniors have raised the expectations of the program, something Brooks and the other younger Denfeld players want to carry on.
“We’re going to take everything that they gave us — the wisdom, the physicality, everything — and bring it back next year,” he said. “We don’t want to go 3-5, we want to go 8-0 next year for those guys.”
News Tribune football players of the year
Year Player School
2024 — Taye Manns, Duluth Denfeld
2023 — Makoi Perich, Esko
2022 — Makoi Perich, Esko
2021 — Logan Orvedahl, Moose Lake-Willow River
2020 — Connor Bushbaum, South Ridge
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2019 — Jarrett Gronski, Superior
2018 — Reagan Ruffi, Northwestern
2017 — Tim Pokornowski, Cloquet
2016 — John Aase, Proctor and Zion Smith, Cromwell-Wright
2015 — Thomas Madison, Hermantown
2014 — Nick Mehlum, Superior
2013 — Ezra Szczyrbak, Moose Lake-Willow River
2012 — Jake Disterhaupt, Moose Lake-Willow River
2011 — Jake Disterhaupt, Moose Lake-Willow River
2010 — Jordan Suhonen, Cromwell
2009 — Ryan Miesbauer, Northwestern
2008 — Nate Zuk, Moose Lake-Willow River
2007 — Nate Zuk, Moose Lake-Willow River
2006 — DeAngelo Brackins, International Falls
2005 — Anthony Christensen, Two Harbors
2004 — Matt Niskanen, Mountain Iron-Buhl
2003 — Chris Siljendahl, Duluth East
2002 — Colly Norman, Cook County
2001 — Gino Guyer, Greenway
2000 — Matt Hillbrand, Moose Lake-Willow River
1999 — Erik Anderson, Cook County
1998 — Nathan Greene, Duluth Central
1997 — Barry Pederson, Cook County
1996 — Kyle Vedder, Duluth Central
1995 — Eric Lund, Ashland
1994 — Tom Soltys, Grand Rapids
1993 — Mike Mannausau, International Falls
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