Kyle Myers
Ticats.ca
The Tiger-Cats have done all that’s been asked of them the past three weeks, beating the Blue Bombers twice and the Eskimos once to even their record at 4–4 for the season.
This weekend the Ticats will travel to Vancouver and face a team with a winning record for the first time since July when they face the BC Lions on Friday night.
The Lions enter Friday’s game fresh off only their third loss of the 2013 season, a 39–38 thriller to the Montreal Alouettes last weekend. In the wake of the loss, some in the media have begun to question BC’s offence, suggesting it’s too predictable.
Kent Austin isn’t buying it.
“How would they know that?” he asked reporters after the team’s final practice of the week. “If you’re not in their meetings and seeing what they’re doing schematically, how would you know that?”
Linebacker Jamall Johnson took a similar approach, and preached the importance of focusing on preparation, while ignoring any outside noise.
“I’m not someone who listens to what other people are saying,” Johnson said. “The critics say one thing but we know that BC has an explosive offence. They’ve got a lot of talented players and a quarterback who’s competitive. We just have to prepare ourselves as best we can and be prepared for the things we’ve seen on film.”
One of those things, according to Johnson, is a strong rushing attack anchored by tailback Andrew Harris.
“Week in and week out one of our main goals is to stop the run,” he said. “They have a really good back, I know if I was their offensive coordinator I’d want to get him the ball as much as possible.”
The ‘Cats have found great success against the run of late; holding opponents to an average of just 78 rushing yards per game over their three-game win streak, with no individual eclipsing the 100-yard mark during that span. But Harris ranks fourth in the CFL in rushing yards, and Travis Lulay isn’t afraid to take down the ball and run with it either.
“For their offence to run as well as they want it to, they want to go through Harris, and Lulay with his legs as well,” he continued.
On the other side of the ball, the Lions are fresh off that tough loss to the Alouettes made possible by a Hail-Mary completion late in the fourth quarter; an uncharacteristic collapse for a BC defence ranked first in the CFL against the pass.
“You get into a situation where you think you’ve got it in the bag and you didn’t, which is what happened with them last week,” said quarterback Henry Burris. “You can be sure those guys are going to come out and do whatever they can do to get a victory.”
Burris also talked about the importance for the Ticats to establish the run game early against BC, to keep their defence off-balance.
“With a great front four like they have, they’ve got some big-time powerful pass rushers,” he said. “When they can make you one-dimensional and keep you in the pocket throwing the ball, they really cave the pocket quickly. Hopefully we can keep them off-balance and take advantage of the success we’ve had with our running game over the past few weeks.”
The Ticats have looked every bit a contender during their current three-game winning stream, but they face a stiff test this weekend against a Lions team who are 4–0 at BC Place this season, and who rarely lose in front of their home crowd.
