Ticats.ca
Justin Dunk
Trust is key in any relationship. Arguably, it is even more important when your job is to catch kicks with 12 heat seeking gunners running at you with your number directly in their cross hairs. It falls upon the shoulders of your teammates to disrupt each individual human missile aimed to take you out.
“I had talks with coach after the first two games and visually I wasn’t trusting my teammates on the returns,” Marcus Thigpen said after the Ticats first day of practice. “’Just go north, just go north’ Coach has been telling me.”
Although the Black and Gold are looking forward to their date with the Leos on Friday, the reverberations of Thigpen’s outburst – 156 total yards and a score — could still be felt on Monday.
“Phenomenal,” Kevin Glenn said of his teammate’s tantalizing display against the Green Riders.
Thigpen showed another dimension to his game and that he’s not just a fast guy who avoids contact. Just ask Riders defensive back Tad Kornegay, who he dropped the hammer on well after the game was in the Ticats favour.
“He won’t live that one down. I’m going to bring it up every time I see him now. ‘Thigpen ran you over’,” Glenn joked.
After a showing in 2010 where Thigpen struck pay dirt four times in the kick return department, most were expecting him to be even better with a year of CFL football under his belt. However, even Thigpen himself would be the first to say that his showings against Winnipeg and Edmonton to start the season didn’t live up to expectations, but a home cooked meal might have been the difference in his approach versus Saskatchewan.
“I put some meat on the grill, I will credit his performance to my cooking,” Glenn said.
Last Thursday, Thigpen and Avon Cobourne were invited to a barbeque at the Glenn residence. The get together also served as a ‘play date’ for the young ones — all three Ticats have children the same age.
“He did invite me and my wife and my kids over for a BBQ and it was pretty good, I can’t lie,” Thigpen said.
Glenn believes his barbeque skills are on point and Thigpen trusted his quarterback to serve him a meal (chicken, macaroni and cheese, baked beans and salad for the record) as good as number five can aim the football in his direction. And he would like to believe it was a combination of his food preparation skills and Thigpen’s extra work last week that led to the type of production many expect from the 190-pound playmaker.
“I maybe have to do it again the way he performed – he’s probably going to eat my cooking every week now, no offence to his wife,” Glenn said.
“I stayed after practice for at least another half hour because I know I’m way better than what I’ve been showing on the field,” Thigpen conceded. “I just couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t producing like I know I should. So I stay out, I do the extra work, I do the extra film study with the coaches and I think it’s starting to pay off.”
The Indiana University product also believes increased touches were a factor for him finding his comfort zone on the field for the first time in 2011.
“I definitely get a rhythm, just getting the ball in my hands helps me get that rhythm going,” Thigpen said. “Once I get those first couple balls in my hands I just feel like I’m unstoppable.”
He was nearly unstoppable in the return game on Saturday averaging 18.6 yards on five returns.
“We felt like we had to add to his reps on offence… from the backfield we wanted him to carry it once early, we wanted him to catch it once in the flat, so he would be better in the return game,” head coach Marcel Bellefeuille said.
Whether or not the home cooked meals courtesy of his quarterback continue, it looks like Thigpen has found that right recipe on the field and it can only lead to more work for the scoreboard in the Ticats column.
“Some people say well you didn’t have a lot of yards against Saskatchewan, but we didn’t need a lot of yards because of the field position that he was putting us in,” Glenn said.
Glenn certainly wouldn’t mind short fields becoming a regular occurrence going forward for his offence, courtesy of Mr. Thigpen
