THE CANADIAN PRESS
Bert Faibish
Ticats.ca
When game-planning for an opponent, coaches usually try to find ways to take away their most dangerous threats. Perhaps it’s double teaming a receiver, putting eight in the box to stymie a running game or assign a spy to shadow a particularly mobile quarterback.
But how do you shut down a punt team?
“They certainly get very creative with the fakes they run out of their punt formation,” said Ticats special teams standout and leading tackler Ray Mariuz.
The fact is that the Argos have been surprising teams with fakes and trick plays all season and just this past weekend successfully ran fakes out of their punt formation twice; once on a fake safety statue of liberty-type play and once on a direct snap to the up back.
“We’ve certainly made a point of pointing out that the fakes are in the program and it’s something that we have to stop,” said Hamilton’s special teams coach Dave Easley. “But again, if everybody does what they’re supposed to do and plays their position we shouldn’t have a problem.”
One of the masterminds behind this fake-play assault is none other than ex-Argo Mike O’Shea, who now coaches Toronto’s special teams unit.
“I can definitely see some of O’Shea in their special teams, he was like another coach out there on the field and he was always very detail oriented and prepared for all sorts of situations,” said Mariuz, a former teammate of O’Shea’s.
“So some of the stuff that they’ve done this year, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s been able to pull it off,” he said.
Unfortunately trick plays and fakes are only one part of the threat that Toronto’s special teams represent.
Always lurking at the end of every kick, just waiting for the other team to allow him a sliver of daylight, is the CFL’s leader in combined yardage, Chad Owens.
Owens has over 2,400 yards of combined offence this year and has brought back two punts and a missed field goal for scores.
“Owens is very, very quick and one thing that we have to make sure our cover teams understand is that we have to stop him if we want to win,” said Easley.
“As long as everyone plays their position then the fakes will be taken care of and we can play football,” he said.
In both meetings this season the Ticats cover team has been able to keep Owens from hurting them with the big play and have actually been the ones to run a fake successfully, converting a third down on a fake punt in the Labour Day Classic.
