By Tim Switzer,
Regina Leader-Post
Mat Nesbitt was feeling rather Presidential on Wednesday — and it wasn’t just the stay in Toronto’s ritzy Royal York Hotel.
During the Canadian Interuniversity Sport annual football banquet, the University of Regina Rams linebacker was awarded the Presidents’ Trophy as the top defensive player in Canada.
“It’s an honour and a privilege for sure,” Nesbitt said from Toronto on Wednesday. “You don’t realize how the season is going until you look back at it when it was all over. You don’t realize it as you go game by game, but if you look back on it as a whole, it was pretty amazing.”
With the win, the 23-year-old is the first Rams player to win a national award since the team joined the university ranks in 1999. He was also named a first-team all-Canadian.
Rams quarterback Teale Orban was hoping to match Nesbitt’s honour but was defeated for the second-straight year for the Hec Crighton Trophy as the most outstanding player in Canadian university football. That award went to St. Mary’s Huskies quarterback Erik Glavic. Orban also lost out on the Russ Jackson Award (given to the top student-athlete) to Clovis Langlois-Boucher of the Sherbrooke Vert et Or.
For Nesbitt, Wednesday’s honour was a long time coming.
“A bunch of people have been telling me that,” said Nesbitt. “In my first year starting with the Rams, I was second in the CIS in tackles. My second year, I was second in the country behind (teammate Steve) Wilson and then my third year I was in Okanagan (with the Sun of the B.C. Football Conference) and I was an all-Canadian.”
This season, Nesbitt was widely credited with turning the Regina defence around. He recorded 64 tackles, two sacks, two forced fumbles and an interception this season.
Nesbitt hopes to parlay that success and his abilities as a long-snapper into a job in the CFL next season. He may also appeal the CIS for one more season of university football given that he only played one year in junior, even though it was after the two-year post-high school window allowed by the league.
Wherever Nesbitt plays next season, his father, Greg, the Rams defensive line coach, is glad he got to enjoy Mat’s win this year.
“I’ve been involved in his football from when he was nine years old and it’s really special to see him achieve an award like this,” said the elder Nesbitt, who made the trip to Toronto with Mat. “It’s something he really needed — that recognition — because he worked really hard and was never one to look for anything special.”
Greg says Mat did have as big an impact on the Regina defence as other have said.
“A middle linebacker is a special breed and he’s got to be able to come down and take on the 300-pounders, play smash-mouth with the fullback and he’s got to cover from inside-out, sideline to sideline,” said Nesbitt.
“Mat’s a very good athlete, he has a really good attitude, good knowledge of the game and he’s got a bit of an edge to him.
“I’m just really happy for (defensive co-ordinator) Paul (Dawson) and everybody on our defence. It’s a big thing for our D to go from being in the toilet to getting this.”
An even better reward for the team would have been a berth in Friday’s Vanier Cup game. Instead it will be played between St. Mary’s and the Manitoba Bisons, the team that beat Regina in the Canada West final.
“You want your boys to be here for sure,” said Nesbitt. “I’d trade in this award to be in that game in a heartbeat.”
Rams offensive lineman Brendon LaBatte was named a second-team all-Canadian. Saskatchewan Huskies cornerback Paul Woldu, a Regina product, and safety Dylan Barker, from Moose Jaw, also made the first team.
Scott Evans of the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks won the J.P. Metras Trophy as the top lineman in the CIS and Concordia Stingers quarterback Liam Mahoney was named the top rookie and received the Peter Gorman Trophy.
Rams head coach Frank McCrystal is up for the Frank Tindall Trophy as coach-of-the-year, an award that is to be given out at a breakfast today.
