Bert Faibish
Ticats.ca
Short of calling Friday night’s game against Winnipeg a must-win, everyone knew that the Ticats were in trouble if they left Hamilton for a tough two-game road trip with a 0-3 record.
As all good teams must do however, the entire Ticat team answered the bell Friday and put in a dominant performance in all three phases of the game.
Quarterback Kevin Glenn conducted the offence with a mastery rarely seen in pro football, beginning the first half with an impressive 14 straight completions.
Overall, Kevin rarely missed, completing 81% of his passes for 340 yards and three touchdowns.
The offence and defence complimented each other all night, following two-and-outs with long drives that ate up the clock and left an exhausted Winnipeg defence to try and defend a quarterback that was clearly “in the zone”.
The offensive line bounced back from a seven sack game in week 1 against the same Bomber team, limiting them to a single sack and giving Glenn as much time as he need in the pocket to find open receivers downfield.
“The O-line really minimized the amount of pressure they put on me in the first game and they gave me time to throw all night,” said Glenn.
The versatility of the Tiger-Cats receiving corps emerged tonight and provided a perfect example of how dangerous they can be, as Glenn completed passes to eight different receivers. On a night where star wideout Arland Bruce III was held to just 41 yards, veteran Dave Stala stepped up and chipped in nine catches for 124 yards.
“That’s the good thing about our offence, we don’t have one guy that the other team can key on, we have six or seven consistent guys that can go out and catch the ball,” said Glenn.
If the offence was impressive tonight, the defence was downright magnificent, completely shutting down Winnipeg quarterback Buck Pierce who left the game in the third quarter with only 117 yards passing and not a single carry.
The score sheet could have told a different story if not for impact plays from two of the leaders of the defence in clutch situations.
With the clock winding down in the second quarter, linebacker Markeith Knowlton picked off Pierce in the endzone, negating a potential score that would have made the game 14-7 at the half.
“At the time it was 14-0 so a touchdown in that situation would have been a big momentum swing for them,” said Knowlton.
With Steven Jyles at quarterback in the second half, Winnipeg appeared to be mounting a come back but were stopped in their tracks by a huge sack from the defence’s most vocal leader, Otis Floyd.
“The momentum seemed like it wanted to shift there but with that sack it just took all the air out of them,” said Floyd.
“I needed to step up and make a play and I’m just glad I came through,” he added.
The team showed the balance that the coaching staff has been striving for all season and will take some positive momentum into a two-game road swing that will see them visit Montral next Thursday, and Saskatchewan the following week.
