Cauz: A roaring start to the Grey Cup Playoffs

Before we get to the feel good story of the playoffs I want to go back to early in the first quarter of the Lions/Stampeders game before the crushing happened.

For an underdog to win a road playoff game it needs to straddle that line between daring and not making critical mistakes. The underdog needs to be aggressive and take chances but also not turn the ball over. That’s asking a lot of any team considering that most mistakes happen when you’re not afraid to be bold and take chances. Don’t want to throw an interception? Fine, check down throughout the game and never challenge the secondary. It’s easy to never have a turnover on downs, just do the prudent move and kick the ball in high-pressure situations.

The Lions on their second possession faced a third and loooooong one at the Calgary nine yard line and elected to kick a field goal. In the regular season I get this decision, no need to be so daring considering the game was 1-0 and still in its infancy. But Andrew Harris and the Lions’ offensive line had been doing a solid job establishing the run and were controlling play at the line of scrimmage. It’s difficult to score touchdowns against Calgary; it’s even harder to do so in mid-November with the wind in your face as it was in the first quarter for BC. This was a moment for Jeff Tedford and the entire team to send a message that they were not going to be pushed around. Instead they played it safe and took the points. I’m not the guy that spends too much time second guessing coaches but in the moment it felt like a wasted opportunity against a superior foe.

Unfortunately for BC being conservative did not translate into a clean game in regards to the turnover margin. A bobbled pass by Bryan Burnham resulted in a touchdown for Keon Raymond and then an Andrew Harris fumble early in the second quarter would tilt the field position entirely towards Calgary’s favour. Yes, Jerome Messam would reply in kind with his own fumble, but the Lions were backed up so deep in their own zone they would be forced to concede a safety, falling into a 14 point deficit. Messam would redeem himself on the next drive with a brilliant touchdown run and the game was over.

If you just looked at the stat line you would think this was a close game (except in penalty differential!!) but really Calgary was in control early in the second quarter and never looked back. The Lions had a couple opportunities early and were never able to capitalize. To beat a great team you need to create your own breaks and generate touchdowns, not field goals in the red zone. The Lions were unable to do either.

Raise your hands if you’re down right giddy for next week’s Western Final! The Stampeders reminded everyone they’re the defending Grey Cup Champions with everyone doing their jobs with cool efficiency. Stampeders vs. Eskimos should be an all time epic game.

Meanwhile earlier in the day, unless you were cheering for the Argonauts, how could you not be happy for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats fans? The injury of Zach Collaros robbed them of something special. This Tiger-Cats team was on an incredible run of blowing out bad teams and good teams while all their losses easily could have been wins. The city was treated to watching the best player in the league on a team destined for greatness.

Then Collaros went down in Week 13 and the team limped to the finish line with a 2-4 record including a painful 44-28 loss to Ottawa to end the season and to end the hopes of an East Division title. This was a fan base that went from the highest of expectations to all of us dunces at CFL.ca picking Toronto to come into Tim Hortons Field and end the Tiger-Cats’ season. That’s a tough pill to swallow.

I wonder how many fans in the stadium believed the game was over down 18-6 with just over five minutes to go in the third, watching an offence that had only one first down in the second half up to that point? As someone who picked Toronto to win I thought it was over. And then came the key play of the game that most people didn’t realize was in fact the turning point for Kent Austin’s squad.

After the Ricky Ray thread-the-needle touchdown pass to Chad Owens, Jeremiah Masoli faced a second and five and a 12-point deficit with time not on his side. The pocket is collapsing and for a split second it looks like Masoli will be sacked forcing Hamilton to either punt or go for a difficult third and long. Considering how stagnant Hamilton’s offence had looked up to that point I imagine Austin would have punted as his team was on its own 28 yard line.

Somehow Masoli used his greatest asset, his mobility, and managed to worm his way through the defensive line and make at least one linebacker miss for the first down. Four plays later he would double pump Bakari Grant (who ran a perfect route) free as Akwasi Owusu-Ansah bit on the play fake and suddenly Grant is racing untouched 42 yards into the end zone and we have a game.

Hamilton’s defence, led by Ted Laurent (that one sack where he split through a pair of offensive lineman was a thing of beastly beauty) deserves a lot of credit for keeping this game close and of course Justin Medlock won’t be picking up any tabs any time soon after his game winning 47-yard field goal, but that entire comeback can be traced back to that second down conversion by Masoli.

The craziest stat from this game was provided by Drew Edwards (@scratchingpost) who noted that Hamilton had not won a game when losing the turnover battle (-1 on the day), had yet to register a victory in games decided by three points or less and had notched just one win when trailing after three quarters (they trailed by five), so naturally the Ticats get the ‘W’.

It was great watching a relieved/ecstatic Kent Austin on the field and his players celebrating wildly to the sounds of a deafening Tim Hortons Field. Winning in the playoffs is about as good a feeling as you can get as a coach, but winning when everyone wrote you off has to feel a wee bit better, even if Austin won’t admit it. For Hamilton to win Austin needed to find a way to hide his team’s biggest weakness (inexperience at quarterback) and he did it by turning to a running game that ranked seventh in the regular season — Hamilton threw the ball just 20 times compared to 28 rushes. It wasn’t petty but in the end it got the job done which is all Austin was hoping for.

If Hamilton finds a way to upset the REDBLACKS in the Eastern Final (seriously, who saw that sentence coming back in Week 1!?!) think about what that will mean for Austin’s legacy. How many coaches do you know have gone to the Grey Cup three years in a row with three different quarterbacks? Coincidentally for Austin to achieve that goal he’ll have to find a way to slow down the quarterback of his first Hamilton Grey Cup team, Henry Burris. Next Sunday is going to be fun.