Isaac Owusu
Ticats.ca
A prominent Tiger-Cats theme for Thursday’s game against the Blue Bombers is ‘returns’.
Dan LeFevour will return as the team’s starter, getting his second straight shot at leading the offence.
LeFevour, who earned the CFL Offensive Player of the Week after dismantling Ottawa last Saturday, faces a Blue Bombers unit coached by defensive savant Gary Etcheverry. Inexperience is not something that bothers the Ticats quarterback.
“I’ve been up here for three years now looking at defences. I think those first two years really helped, just seeing not only different defences, but to view different playbooks and how to attack them,” LeFevour said.
He also shared thoughts about the facing the league’s fifth-ranked defence.
“They’ve been successful. They try to confuse you as an offence. Hopefully our plan works, I feel pretty confident in what we’re doing.”
Coming off a great performance and dealing with a short week of practice, Ticats head coach Kent Austin didn’t go easier on his quarterback this week.
“We just take the same approach every week, and how we prepare and how he prepares as a quarterback and what the expectations are and one thing you’re worried about Dan is he will prepare hard. It doesn’t mean he’ll play a perfect game ,but he understands the value of decision-making at that position and putting our offence in a position to be successful.”
Austin was also able to identify what makes the Winnipeg defence as sophisticated as their reputation carries.
“I think it poses a challenge regardless of your level of experience. There’s not a lot of tendencies is that you can rely on, there’s certain looks that I think you can count on in certain areas of the field. We’re going to try and build an attack that gives Dan or any quarterback that plays certainty of where he’s going with the football.”
Staying on the theme, the team’s defence will see the returns of starters Rico Murray and Simoni Lawrence. Both missed the last two games due to injury but after a solid week of practice they look to reintegrate back in the defence smoothly.
“I’m excited. We’ve been playing at a high level on defence so I’m just ready to get back in the mix and have fun with the rest of the guys,” Murray said.
“I’m expecting Winnipeg to come up there and make it a battle. Right now they’re the number one offence in the league, and we got a lot of work cut out for us,” he added.
It’s not a true return, but defensive back Brandon Stewart faces his old team for the first time since joining the Ticats as a free agent in the off-season.
“It’s going to be like another football game against another well prepared opponent. Winnipeg is playing good football this year; it’s going to be fun to go out there playing in some of the guys that played with when I played there. It’s always special when you play against your old team. But we just want to go out there and get those two points,” Stewart said.
The ‘return’ theme comes full circle in the special teams unit as Quincy McDuffie makes his Ticats debut.
The 23-year-old receiver/return man will fill in for Brandon Banks who will be unavailable due to injury.
“It’s a chance for me to showcase what I’m capable of doing and take advantage of this opportunity,” he said.
I’m kind of relaxed about it, I’m going to mentally prepare today and tomorrow go out there and execute, and just try and play free,” he added.
