Coming into this season, the Lake City High football coaches knew what they had in Jerry Louie-McGee - after all, they had watched the exciting H-back make remarkable play after remarkable play the last two years.

Fans knew this, too.

Coming into this season, most fans likely had no idea what quarterback Michael Goggin and fullback Connor Newby were capable of - but the Timberwolf coaches certainly did.

"At the end of two-a-days last year, Connor was as good as anybody we had," Lake City coach Van Troxel said. "But we had Hunter Damschen, who was a senior, and we had Gavan (Rosteck), who was a senior (at fullback). And we had Tucker (Louie-McGee, at quarterback). Michael looked really good a year ago as a backup. Just like this year - Colin Hunter pushed Michael to the limit, and Colin Hunter's going to be another one of these very good one-year quarterbacks. But we're a senior-oriented program, and if it's equal, I'm going with the senior."

Louie-McGee, Goggin and Newby, all seniors, have proven to be quite the three-headed offensive monster for Lake City (8-1), which begins its playoff run Friday at home at 7 p.m. vs. Capital of Boise in the quarterfinals of the state 5A playoffs.

“I knew what they (Goggin and Newby) could do, and knew what our team could do, so I had no doubt what we could accomplish,” Louie-McGee said.

GOGGIN, A 6-foot-3, 190-pounder, backed up Tucker Louie-McGee (Jerry’s brother, who is now redshirting at Idaho State) at quarterback last year. This year, Goggin battled Colin Hunter, a junior, for the starting QB job during the preseason. Goggin won the job with his consistent play (a 71 percent passing percentage didn’t hurt either), and Hunter has contributed at receiver.

“I just tried to play my game, and run the offense,” said Goggin, who attributed his high completion percentage to “really good receivers” and “making the right read.”

“I’ve got these two guys to hand the ball to; I just try to get the ball to these guys,” Goggin added, looking at Louie-McGee and Newby.

This season, Goggin has completed 120 of 169 passes for 1,883 yards and 15 touchdowns, with eight interceptions — some of those on “Hail Mary” passes.

He has also rushed for 400 yards and six touchdowns on 72 carries.

Troxel said he wishes he had found a regular position for Goggin last year. This year, between Goggin and Hunter, he decided whoever didn’t win the QB job would get regular reps at receiver.

“With the guys we have, it’s not about you making plays, it’s about you getting the ball to the right people to make plays,” Troxel said of his quarterback. “Making the right read on the option ... where (past Lake City quarterbacks) Dustin (Sedgwick), Ben (Widmyer), Garren (Hammons), no matter what, they were running the ball. Michael’s been much better about reading it as well as anyone we’ve had, and coming up with the right decision. And he’s a good ballcarrier.”

The soft-spoken Goggin also is not afraid to tell his coach when he thinks Lake City should try something different than what Troxel, who is in his 36th year as a high school coach (and 21st at Lake City), has called for — though it took a while to reach that point.

“(It’s) hard sometimes,” Goggin said. “Sometimes I see something different, and then we argue a little bit about it, but usually he’s right. He listens. It’s hard, but I think we have a mutual agreement.”

“(Two weeks ago), Lewiston was reading our hand signals,” Goggin said, “so I was telling him that we should go into a huddle, like have a runner bring in the play ... it ended up working out.”

The T-Wolves went to a huddle for perhaps two series.

“He’s not flamboyant, flashy; he’s a blue-collar, very good, athletic quarterback,” Troxel said. “He’s dependable, he’s consistent, he’s rock steady. He doesn’t get flustered. The only time he gets flustered is, sometimes, when he and I argue. But he’s got enough moxie in him that he will argue with me. And to be honest, I respect the hell out of it ... he will fight for what he believes.”

“He hits the open guys, and makes smart choices,” Newby said of Goggin. “He always makes the right read.”

NEWBY WAS a running back as a freshman and sophomore. Last year, with two seniors at that position, he started at free safety, and earned all-5A Inland Empire League honors. This year, with the development of junior Scott Helsper in the secondary, Newby has been playing less defense of late.

Newby (5-8, 170) is averaging 6.1 yards per carry, with 904 yards on 147 carries and 10 touchdowns.

“I wanted to play running back (as a junior), but I knew with the seniority and the two running backs we had ahead of me, I learned to accept it,” Newby said. “And (assistant) coach (Travis) Harmon, our DBs coach, I really got along with him, he made defense fun. I just went out there and did what I could do for the team.”

This year, that meant toughing it through an injury to play against Coeur d’Alene on Oct. 17, in what was Lake City’s most important game of the season to date. Newby didn’t start, but saw enough action to carry the ball 15 times for 63 yards and a touchdown in a 45-42 overtime victory that gave the Timberwolves the No. 1 seed to the playoffs from the North.

“Most people would be like, ‘nope, I’m not playing,’ but Connor — he’s tough,” Goggin said.

“I knew that if I didn’t play I’d never forget about it the rest of my life,” Newby said. “I just had to. If it didn’t pan out, I’d never forget it.”

Newby is a tough inside runner; most of his yards come on runs up the middle. Louie-McGee does most of his damage on the perimeter, and when defenses think they’ve figured both of them out, Goggin hurts them with his arm and his legs.

Newby said his toughness comes from being around his older brother, Kyle, a senior center on the 2001 Lake City team that played in the state 4A title game, and his friends.

“He and his buddies all played football, and I was always around, and they always beat me up,” Connor recalled. “I’d have to give most of the credit to them.”

Asked where Newby’s toughness comes from, Troxel taps his heart.

“And he’s super smart; he understands the game.” Troxel said. “Newby doesn’t say a word, but when he does, everybody listens. Because ‘Mighty Mouse’ is pretty tough.”

LOUIE-McGEE (5-9, 175) lines up in the slot sometimes, flanks out sometimes, lines up in the backfield sometimes, and also returns kicks.

He has 47 receptions for 928 yards — an average of 19.7 yards per catch — and 9 TDs. He also has rushed for 561 yards and five touchdowns on 92 carries.

But Louie-McGee also has returned two kickoffs for touchdowns, returned two punts for touchdowns, and has one pick-six. That came early in the season, when he was playing more on defense.

Against Coeur d’Alene, in Lake City’s first victory over the Vikings since 2009, he scored four touchdowns — one on a flanker pass from Hunter, two on kickoff returns and one on a punt return.

Asked their favorite Louie-McGee return, Goggin and Newby agreed it was the 92-yard kickoff return vs. the Vikings, where Coeur d’Alene executed what seemed to be a perfect squib kick. Louie-McGee picked it up on his 8 near the sideline, headed back toward the middle of the field, was seemingly hemmed in around the 10, but managed to break three tackles, and was gone.

“Three guys on your back, spinning around ... it was a perfect kick ... he’s just hard to tackle,” Goggin said.

“At first, everyone was wondering why he was picking up the ball,” Newby said. “And soon enough he broke away, and that’s why. He’s a playmaker.”

Louie-McGee remembered the play this way:

“On that kick return my friend Kirk (McKenzie) said, ‘let it roll out.’ I decided to tip the ball in, and I picked it and all these guys were coming at me. All I saw was black (the Vikings were wearing their black jerseys). I tried to sprint and they grabbed me, and I was like, all right, I’m about to get chewed out by Trox, my team’s going to hate me for putting us back here. And I broke a tackle and saw the open field and I thought, what just happened?”

There’s been a lot of that thought this season when Louie-McGee touches the ball. More than once, the play seems to be over, only to see him squirt away for a few extra yards — or sometimes, take it the distance.

Troxel said that attitude goes back to track and field season last spring.

“At the state track meet, in the 4x4(00-meter relay) and the open 4(00), he said, ‘I’m not going to be denied.’ As a football coach, I got goose bumps watching him compete in track,” said Troxel, also an assistant track coach. “And he’s carried it to the football field. There’s been those four or five plays that he’s just said, ‘I’m not going to be tackled.’ And he’s not. I’ve seen him take big guys on and knock em down.”

That better explains the football game against Sandpoint last month, where he caught a 42-yard touchdown pass, only to see it called back because he had lined up offside. Troxel called his number again on the next play, and Louie-McGee carried the ball 47 yards to the house.

“We’ve seen all the moves and flash as a sophomore and a junior, but we’d never seen that mental toughness and physical toughness until last spring, and he’s carried it right to the football field,” Troxel said. “He had that one touchdown taken away in the (Sandpoint) game, and we gave him the ball again, and he ran through about four guys to score.”

“You just have a mindset that nobody’s going to stop you,” Louie-McGee said.

ALL THREE hope to play in college, but their minds are on the present these days. Lake City is two wins away from its fifth trip to the state title game, where the Timberwolves would be trying to win their third state title in school history, and first since 2006.

In the summer before their junior year, Goggin and Louie-McGee and a couple Lake City teammates attended the Manning Passing Academy just outside of New Orleans. Goggin said Eli Manning worked with his group a little bit, and he learned a lot about footwork and throwing mechanics.

“All three of them, I love them to death,” Troxel said of Goggin, Newby and Louie-McGee. “Tough — Jerry gets banged up, Newby gets banged up, you don’t hear a word out of them.”

Don’t need to. They do their talking with their play on the field.