Adam Gagnon/CFL.ca
If Clarence Denmark is only fairly sure of what a Boll Weevil is, if he’s only a little bit acquainted with the beer snake, there is one creature about which he’s damn sure. That creature is the hungry bear inside his football team, one that has been frustrated by an uneven start in 2015.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have what it takes to get their gears meshing, Denmark believes. Pronto.
As for the first point, Denmark played for a college team that was – for some reason – nicknamed the Boll Weevils.
“It was weird when I first got there. But it grows on you,” he says of his time at Arkansas-Monticello, playing for a team named after an insect that likes to devour crops. As for the second point; Winnipeg’s vaunted beer snake, he says “I’ve seen a picture of it. It can get pretty crazy.” As for the third and most important point, Denmark is bullish. The 2015 Winnipeg Blue Bombers have what it takes to echo the success of the first Bombers team he played on.
“I believe so,” he says firmly, sizing up a club that has come out of the gates with a 2-3 record, including one that got away in Calgary and one that was washed away on the rain-soaked field of Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium last week. “I just believe that we haven’t put it all together. We’ve shown a little bit here and a little bit there. I just don’t think we’ve put it all together in one game and just had that complete game yet.”
Denmark was fortunate enough to play in a Grey Cup Game in his rookie season of 2011. It follows, then, that he has a little intimate knowledge of what it takes for a team to excel, even if that version of the Bombers sputtered down the stretch of the regular season. They still rallied to win the East and book a date in the championship game.
“We just made the plays when it counts,” recalls Denmark. “It just always came down to somebody making a play. Didn’t matter who it was. Offence, special teams, defence. Just somebody always made a play to bail us out.”
“That year we pulled some good wins out at home and it felt pretty good,” says the fifth-year Blue Bomber, who has averaged nearly 18 yards per catch in 2015 and stands tied for sixth in total yards with 283.
Clarence Denmark notched his first 1,000-yard season last year and this year is averaging 17.7 yards per catch.
Things haven’t felt quite so good in Winnipeg since Denmark’s rookie year. Six wins in 2012. Three in 2013. Last year’s 5-1 start turned sour with just two wins in the twelve games that followed. This season has seen the Bombers look good – wins over Saskatchewan and Montreal – and not so good, including last week’s 32-3 loss to the Eskimos and a 52-26 pasting at the hands of the Hamilton Ti-Cats in Week 2.
With franchise quarterback Drew Willy being banged around and injured on a couple of occasions, you might think frustration would be an obviously identifiable feeling in the Bombers’ camp. You’d be at least partially right, Denmark admits. But, he is positive that the winning habits of 2011 are about to spring to life in the current edition of his team.
“Nobody’s gonna believe it until we actually do it,” the 29-year-old from Jacksonville, Fla. says. “But, in house, as a group, we all believe. We all know that we’re just that close. So, we’ve got to do whatever it takes, to put in that extra effort to make it happen.”
There is a determination, Denmark says, to ensure that things don’t slip away in an early season swoon. It might be tempered with the aforementioned frustration but that, he says, is par for the course and nothing to be worried about.
“You’re gonna be frustrated,” he explains. “It’s pro football. Everything’s not gonna go your way and when it doesn’t, you’re gonna get frustrated. When we’re starting games off knowing that we should win those games and we end up not winning ‘em, you’re gonna get frustrated. We’re all human. But at the same time, you have to be a pro and know you have to move on to the next week.”
Moving on is precisely what Denmark wants his mates to do. No sense moping about losses, the 2014 CFL All-Star says. Instead, put your head down and grind.
“With all the talent on this team it just comes down to puttin’ it all together,” he assures.
Good news for the Bombers on that front is that hard work is habitual, Denmark says, and that second-year head coach Mike O’Shea doesn’t even need to verbalize his desire for it anymore.
“Last year he came in and he was preaching to the guys. Now, it’s just a given. We expect that out of everybody. That’s what we get on an everyday basis.”
There are no “ifs” “ands” or “buts” coming from Denmark. Drew Willy is playing on Thursday and there should be no letdown. Not that Willy’s injury didn’t feel like a crusher last week, the way it did in the Hamilton loss, too.
“I think the whole team kinda took a blow when Drew went down,” he says. “But I think we have to rally around whoever is back there for us. I think it just has a lot to do with stepping our level up and making some more plays out there for the quarterback.”
Making plays is something Denmark has been doing since game one of his rookie year in 2011. Receivers have come and receivers have gone in that time but Denmark believes the corps the Blue Bombers have in 2015 has the right stuff to make those key plays so needed to win games the way the 2011 team did.
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“I think we’ve already been playing great,” he says. “We’ve put great things on film this year already. And we haven’t reached our full potential yet. We’re only gonna grow as a unit and I’m very excited about it.”
For Clarence Denmark and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the riches of a winning season seem tantalizingly close. If they are to make it so, Denmark says they’ll need a little of the all-for-one magic that his rookie team showed.
“Everybody’s not gonna be perfect on every play,” he says, then adds the hopeful observation that echoes from 2011.
“If we play as a team, I think we can win.”
