LEWISTON — Lewiston High School’s tailback often takes five, six or seven handoffs in a row.

He absorbs punishment that would send lesser football players to the sidelines for the remainder of the season. Then he simply gets up, slaps his tormentor on the back, returns to the huddle and runs harder next time.

At least once every Friday night, typically two or three times, he will break a touchdown run that makes jaws drop and fists flail against the turf in frustration.

And he answers to the surname Turcotte.

Hey, Jeff, you wouldn’t  … happen to be related  … to that other guy … Jared, would you?

The younger Turcotte smiles. He gets that a lot.

“It’s been a big thing with people thinking we’re family. But no relation or anything,” Jeff Turcotte said. “It happens all the time. Jared and I both kid around with it.”

Turcotte, Part Two, is no joke. And while the understudy is in no rush to compare himself to the most celebrated Lewiston football player of his lifetime, Jeff’s similarities to Jared — both in the productive present and in his potential gridiron future — grow more striking each week.

Before his injury-abbreviated career at the University of Maine, Jared Turcotte, who wore No. 21 for the Blue Devils, ran away with the Fitzpatrick Trophy at the end of his 2006 senior season.

Jeff Turcotte, No. 34 in your program, is at least putting himself into that player-of-the-year conversation. He has rushed for 765 yards and 10 touchdowns, second in Eastern Class A in both categories. He also is the Blue Devils’ third leading receiver and one of the team’s top tacklers at linebacker.

“There are times when I wonder if he’s wearing down during a game, but he doesn’t,” Lewiston coach Bill County said. “I’m asking him constantly, ‘Are you OK? Do you need a break?’ He just wants the ball. He gets better in the second half and gets stronger as he goes.”

The signature moment that sealed Turcotte’s place in the pantheon of tailbacks who have starred for County at Lewiston and Leavitt began with Turcotte staring through blurry eyes and a crooked face mask at a starlit sky above Messalonskee High School.

With the Devils in their two-minute offense at the end of the first half, Turcotte cradled a swing pass from quarterback Chris Madden.

“We had run a little out pattern to him earlier in the game and he had picked it up for plus-10. The (Sam) Dexter kid from Messslonskee wasn’t going to let him do it again,” County recalled.

Just as Turcotte swiveled his head and began to turn his body up field, Dexter leveled him with a textbook blow to the chest.

Already battling cramps on the unseasonably warm, late-summer evening, Turcotte felt the classic symptoms of a stinger: pain in his back and shoulder; numbness in his left arm.

“I thought he might be done for the day,” County said. “He took a play off and was back in, and as a matter of fact he broke a big run the next time he had the ball. That’s kind of a testament to his season.”

Lewiston lined up in the wrong formation on that third-quarter play.

No matter. Turcotte hit a cavernous hole in the middle of his offensive line and was never touched on an 83-yard touchdown run, one of his three scores on the night.

“I was little bit uneasy when I felt the pain in my back, but that’s the game of football,” Turcotte said. “You’re going to take some hits. The thing is how well you’re going to bounce back. This year I’m trying to make it my tendency not to get hurt easy and to get back in there.”

Turcotte was part of a four-man rotation in the Lewiston backfield a year ago.

With one graduated, one injured and another missing almost two full games due to disciplinary reasons, Turcotte has logged nearly two-thirds of the Devils’ carries.

“He has been the prototypical Lewiston tailback. He started as a junior and knew he was going to get more carries as a senior,” County said. “It’s OK with Jeff. He’s built to carry the ball 30 or 40 times if he had to. And we play him at linebacker, so he gets contact all day long.”

Turcotte grew up watching the elder Turcotte and Jared’s immediate successor, Wesley Myers, thrive in that spotlight.

When he isn’t watching film of their vintage runs, or dissecting one of his own, Jeff often leans on Jared for training tips.

Related or not, you see, Lewiston football is family.

“Jared helped me a lot with preseason cutting drills,” Turcotte said. “Sometimes we come across each other and talk about college and everything. We talk about how the games have been going.”

The two could have another common bond next fall.

Turcotte wants to play college football. Division III schools are clamoring for his services, but his sights are set on the Division I flagship program in Orono.

“I’ve talked to (Coach) Jack Cosgrove a little bit,” Turcotte said. “We’re still talking about it. I’m pretty sure (2012) would be a redshirt year. He said if my health and grades are all set I can have a chance over there, so I’m definitely looking forward to it.”

County has watched Turcotte’s speed, strength and durability evolve to the point where he sees his pupil having a realistic shot.

“He doesn’t necessarily have that flash when he runs,” County said. “He’s more of a power-type runner. But I think there have been some defensive backs who have been surprised when he’s in the secondary that he can lose you.”

Even if he can’t quite shake every stranger’s one, burning question.

koakes@sunjournal.com

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