YOUR MORTGAGE NOW: GREY CUP ETCH’S & O’S

BY: Gary Etcheverry
For www.yourmortgagenow.ca

“CARETAKER BOB”

If someone is just starting to “get into” the CFL, you should probably know that currently it’s an eight team league (maybe someday we’ll share a thought-provoking proposal for reasonable expansion).

And Senator David Braley owns BOTH the British Columbia Lions and the Toronto Argonauts.  And his two teams won back-to-back Grey Cups the last two seasons, hosting both.

He has been nothing less than a league saviour and stalwart.  No doubt a Hall of Famer ASAP!

But we thought we’d give props to his adversary/owner-colleague Bob Young, of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.  “CaretakerBob,” his Twitter handle, has been a godsend for his boyhood hometown team, and therefore the CFL.

We suspect Mr. Braley had much to do with recruiting Bob for his current passion project.  Young has put millions of dollars into his team.

He is setting a durable, sustainable foundation for the Ti-Cats, after a decade worth of few ups, mostly downs.

During the time leading up to the Grey Cup game this Sunday, he’ll probably be the slender guy wearing both his signature ball cap and smile.

If you get a chance, say “Hello,” and “Thank You,” for all he’s done for his Hamilton Tiger-Cats and for the CFL.

As it is for EVERYONE involved, this is the opportunity of a lifetime for “Caretaker Bob.”

HAMILTON 36 AT TORONTO 24

Henry Burris started slow.  He finished strong.  He completed 27 of 40 passes for 371 yards, three TD’s and one pick.

But his Hamilton Tiger-Cats are the hottest team of all eight teams in the CFL.  And they only have to be hotter than their next opponent on game day since there’s only opponent remaining.

Hamilton was 2-1 against the Argonauts in the regular season, and with its East Final victory on Sunday, make it 3-1, with three of the four in the Rogers Centre.  The victory was no surprise, especially not the way either team has been playing in the last portion of the season that included back-to-back victories by the Tabbies over their bitter rivals from “The Big Smoke.”

The better team won all three of them, especially this one.  Tied at 24 at the intermission, Hamilton shutout Toronto in the second half.  They exploited the Argo defence that never approached their 2012 Grey Cup winning stride.

The Ticats are 6-1 in their last seven, and under head coach Kent Austin have become way more than a “find-a-way-to-win” operation, as has been reported in these parts for most of the season.

They have become dominant.  This is not the team that the Riders spit-stomped 37-0 on July 21 in Regina, or the one that QB Drew Willy defeated 32-20 in Guelph the following Saturday.

Austin has nurtured this team (in particular the offence) — or prodded it — to be a well-oiled, multi-faceted, multi-quarterbacked operation.  And most surprising to us maybe is how productive the ground game is at times.

The likely Rookie of the Year winner, Hamilton RB C.J. Gable is a Star who can slay the best defence either as a receiver, usually out of the backfield, or most likely as a slashing, sometimes spectacular ball carrier.

The Ticats scored on the first possession of the second half to lead 31-24, and beyond that the Toronto defence found it virtually impossible to contain Burris and his troops from sucking the remaining time on the clock with any consistency the rest of the way.

The longest possession of the second half for Toronto was its last.  It was four plays long.  Argo QB Ricky Ray completed a pass for 16-yards from his own 35-yard-line.  A Ticat DB was called for unnecessary roughness.  First-&-10 from the Hamilton 44-yard-line.  Three incomplete passes later was all she wrote.  That’s right, we said that was the longest Argo possession of the second half!

Former Rider Andy Fantuz led all receivers with 11 catches for 114-yards and two TD’s (his longest was only 18-yards).  A balanced performance by the big Ticat pass catcher.

And Hamilton FG kicker Luca Congi, also a former Rider, was perfect in this East Final, 3-3 on both field goals and extra points.

Even though this is an eight team league — as it nears — this Grey Cup match-up and all its story lines, becomes more and more UNBELIEVABLE!

And just think, there’s only seven known folks in the whole province that didn’t predict it.  (We’ll never tell who.)

SASKATCHEWAN 35 AT CALGARY 13

Unlike the East Final — where the Tiger-Cats were 2-1 versus the Argos in the regular season — the Riders were 1-2 against Calgary.  And in the last three regular seasons, and one playoff appearance last year, Saskatchewan was ‘Oh-fer’ at McMahon Stadium.

Bucking the trend, however, the Riders were poised to dominate this one-sided affair where the final score actually flattered the Stamps.

Wasn’t close really.

Thanks to the defence, and an extension of it, the special teams, Saskatchewan harassed and stripped Calgary into its 2013 off-season.  It’s virtually impossible to be on the short-side of the turnover battle 7-1 and prevail.

And the Stamps did not.

The Riders ball-hawked the opponent into oblivion on its home field.  In most every case, these were turnovers that Gang Green created by design, little charity work on the part of Calgary.

Saskatchewan does have some issues to mop-up in both the kicking game (a blocked FG, and punter protection, in particular), and on defence (some minor coverage issues, and some — at times, especially in the second half — glaring areas of concern versus the run).  But that’s why there’s preparation and practice between contests.

Beyond the turnovers, which are usually the touchstone of most football games in any league, head coach Corey Chamblin, and offensive coordinator George Cortez, in concert with Rider pivot Darian Durant, and the ground game featuring Kory Sheets, led a Saskatchewan attack that was masterful.

There was a time, more than 15 years ago, where Anthony Calvillo was awful in Hamilton as the Tiger-Cat QB.  But a change of scenery to Montreal, a step back to become Tracy Ham’s understudy, and in time Calvillo matured and improved and led his Montreal teams into multiple Grey Cups.  And he will most certainly gain entry into the CFL Hall of Fame soon after he’s eligible.

Durant has never been awful as the Saskatchewan quarterback.  And now, he’s bordering on GREAT.  His maturation has been significant.  He has been the Rider starter since the outset of the 2009 season.  He has earned, now — with his teams — three Grey Cup appearances in those five seasons.

He’s done it with a variety of coaches, coordinators, systems, etc.  In comparison, Calvillo, in a 2008-to-2012 five-season span, all under coach Marc Trestman (same system), has also appeared in three CFL championship games.

In 2009, 2010, and now on Sunday, Darant has defeated the Stampeders in the West Final each time, the most successful regular-season CFL team since 2008, the coach John Hufnagel era.  Twice in Calgary, and in Regina in 2009.

A couple days ago, Durant was 24 of 30 passing for 280-yards and three TD’s.  No INT’s.  But as impressive, poised and productive his on-field performances have become, it’s his demeanor of leadership that stands out.  He is in total control now of not just his offence, but of his team.

Well beyond this month’s final Sunday, longevity will be the only question regarding Durant.  He is already postured to be considered among Rider royalty, most certainly with a win in Grey Cup 101, and with a couple-three-plus seasons of similar success thereafter.

But beyond the caused turnovers and Durant’s performance, there was something else.  Something that could have big time ramifications in this Grey Cup.

The issue of two tight ends.

When the Stamps weren’t being worn down and wornout by the Riders’ two tight end, AND two tight end PLUS (enter receiver Chris Getzlaf) passing, and especially running game, Calgary was assisting by being very unsound defensively.

As Saskatchewan offensive line coach Doug Malone explained in a SportsCage interview much earlier in the season, two tight end formations kind of “thin-out” the defence.  What an understatement.

(Wonder if any of the Toronto-area media that back in Y2K tried to undo then Argo head coach John Huard’s CFL career before it even got going, simply because of the mere prospect of two tight end offensive formations, now see Huard as a visionary of sorts?  Probably not.  They’ve accidentally-on-purpose forgotten.  “Ya but what I think…”)

We know that the defensive technology being currently deployed in the CFL versus these formations is not sustainable.  That is, defensive success against plays deployed from this family of formations is in spite of the tactics executed, not because of them.  This includes both the Ticat and Rider units (a few of Stampeder RB Jon Cornish’s second half big runs were from two tights.)

This “thin-out” affect occurs in both the passing game, and the running game.  And in this one, Saskatchewan used this kind of formation about 20- to 30% of the time!

Sheets carried 28 times for 177-yards (with a long of 30-yards) and one TD.  At times you saw him (or Jock Sanders) rip through the line, through a “thinned-out” space or seam.  But mostly he explored a crowded middle, only to bounce it out wide where the Calgary defence could not contain him because of over-compensating in the middle of the line.

The Riders have been more committed to these formations throughout the season, certainly in this West Final, than has Hamilton, however the Ticats do use them.

Talk about so-called X’s & O’s, if you’re into such things.  This two tight end topic alone could keep us occupied throughout the winter!

We here believe that although both defences find these formations challenging, to say the least, the Tiger-Cats may well be most exposed.

WE CAN’T WAIT!


(Follow Gary on Twitter at @coachETCH)