Cortez: “It’s not the Grey Cup”
A day removed from his first confrontation with a familiar Stampeder team, Tiger-Cat Head Coach George Cortez reiterated that Thursday merely marks the arrival of another football game.
The coach rolled out a favourite maxim for those reporters wondering what importance the week seven tilt held for him.
“It’s the next game, which makes it the most important one,” said Cortez. “It’s good to see people after the game that you know, but as for emotions, it’s not the Grey Cup. It’s a regular season game, and all of those are about the same.”
When asked whether his starting quarterback had a different approach, Cortez pointed out that Thursday will not bring Burris’ first encounter with a previous team.
“He’s got a couple of former teams. Last week was a former team and this week is,” said Cortez. “I haven’t thought about it, and he’s excited about every game. I’m sure that he wants to do well, but hopefully it won’t be to the point where we can’t execute the offence.”
Cortez: “They’re your opponents, not your compadres”
Cortez remains understandably friendly with Calgary Head Coach John Hufnagel, having worked alongside him for a decade in changing offensive capacities.
The two seek out one another regularly, but have put a temporary stop to that communication as they face the prospect of standing on opposite ends of the sidelines on Thursday.
Cortez addressed the humourous suggestion that he may be engaging in some gamesmanship ahead of the contest by calling his old colleague in the wee hours of the morning. Hufnagel, as it turns out, operates on the same early morning schedule as Cortez does.
“Five in the morning wouldn’t be early enough to see if he was up,” said the Ticat coach of his Stampeder peer. “A few weeks ago, I was at Tim Hortons at five in the morning here. I thought that my phone was off, but it was in my pocket and it was ringing. I thought, “who the heck could this be?” It was Huf, just saying hi.
“We talk regularly – not this week – but we talk regularly, usually about things that have happened in games and issues within the league. We tell the players that no matter who’s on the other side, when you’re playing them they’re your opponents, not your compadres.”
Cortez: Calgary experience will always be an influence
Cortez acknowledged on Wednesday that his approach to the game of football will always be influenced in part by his experiences with the Stampeders.
That fact should come as no surprise. After all, the Tiger-Cat coach won three Grey Cups and spent 11 seasons with Calgary. Cortez indicated that his offensive philosophy naturally resembles that of Hufnagel, as the two refined a common system over three years from 2007 to 2009.
“Offensively, we probably see the game pretty similarly because we were sitting right beside each other in the same office together for three years,” said Cortez. “At that time, I would have said that we saw offence exactly the same way.”
The coach argued that it is simple human nature to emulate one’s successes and seek to build on their failures. With the success he experienced in Calgary in mind, his time there is an obvious source of inspiration.
“We’re all influenced by the people who we work with and have been successful with,” said Cortez. “There’s no doubt that most of that success has been involved with the Stampeders, with a variety of head coaches.
“A lot of what we do is built around those things. Is it exactly the same? No, because nobody does anything exactly the same as someone else. You always want to take the things that you like and build on those and the things you didn’t like and do them differently.”
Burris: Focus is on the victory, not the occasion
Henry Burris was adamant on Wednesday that despite being surrounded by storylines, he and his teammates are looking solely toward carrying out their game plan against the Stampeders in a day’s time.
“Once we step on that field, all of the hoopla surrounding the game will disappear, because it comes down to executing,” said Burris. “I know for myself and this team, that’s where our focus is. It’s done well for us over the past few games, and we were definitely a good team on that track.
“Of course, with the relationships that a couple of us have with that team this week, there is a bit more riding on it. But it’s all about getting the victory.”
Burris: Calgary’s defenders “really fly around”
Burris was asked to evaluate the threat posed by Calgary’s defence, and singled out the group’s speed as a primary concern. A number of players who were young and untested when the Ticat quarterback first practiced with them have since cut their teeth in the CFL.
“That defence is playing very well and we have our task cut out for us,” said Burris. “They really fly around. They have a lot of team speed. But it’s led by that front four. They have a bunch of great players up front, guys that I’ve helped nurture since they were babies out there. You can tell that those guys have gained a lot of experience and are playing with a lot of confidence.
“They really hit the quarterback and have stopped the run with effectiveness this year. We’ve got to do a good job of mixing things up. Our offensive line is going to have their work cut out for them, but I’m very confident in what our guys can do.”
Burris: A new chapter underway in Hamilton
Burris recounted the difficult end to his Stampeder career on Wednesday, and suggested that he dedicated himself to launching a new beginning at the conclusion of the rocky 2011 season.
“It was definitely embarrassing with the way that things ended last year,” admitted the veteran quarterback. “It was something that wasn’t in my script, something that I wasn’t used to with the number of years that I’ve been playing football.”
“But once the season ended, I turned the page. Because for me it was all about making sure that I was in the best shape possible and ready to go this year and play the football that everybody knows that I can play.”
The prospect of playing with the cast of characters that the Tiger-Cats have assembled provided extra motivation to prepare according to Burris.
“Coming here with the players and the staff that we have here, I would have been a sucker not to get myself ready and lose this great opportunity with the type of team that we have here,” said the Ticat pivot. “Things are going good, but we still have a long way to go to get better.”
Burris: Still searching for a complete game
Burris demonstrated his perfectionist streak on Wednesday as he suggested that his team’s poor third quarter performances must be improved.
Despite the rampant pace of his offence, the Tiger-Cat quarterback was determined to leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of more production.
“We’ve had a lot of self-inflicted wounds that we’ve caused in the third quarter,” said Burris. “Some were related to the newness of the offence that we’re playing in. But last week there was stuff where we needed to make better adjustments and be able to pick up new looks that they were giving us. Its stuff that we’ve rehearsed, but we’ve got to be better in those scenarios.”
The quarterback cautioned though that not every play is makeable. When a defence executes at a certain level, putting the ball into play is simply too risky.
“When [defences] are making plays, you’ve got to be smart with the ball as well,” said Burris. “You can always reserve the right to kick the ball and win field position.”
