Rookie running back ready for spotlight
Cooper to step in for injured Gable
There haven’t been many opportunities for newcomers to play in the Edmonton Eskimos backfield this season.
Not even a Week 5 concussion kept veteran running back C.J. Gable from missing a start over the eight games Edmonton has played. But that’s all about to change Saturday against the visiting Montreal Alouettes (7 p.m., TSN, ESPN+, 630 CHED).
Rookie Shaq Cooper has been practising with the first team all week in Gable’s absence with an undisclosed injury and is set to make his first CFL start. The fivefoot-10, 190-pound Fort Hays State product has been on the Eskimos practice roster up to this point.
“It’s a great feeling. With this opportunity, I’m going to do the best I can, leave it all on the field and go out there and do my job,” said the 25-year-old native of Coral Gables, Fla. “C.J., he’s tough, man. If he didn’t break anything, he’d be playing.”
Cooper is getting the call against a last-place Alouettes club the Eskimos handily dispatched 44-23 in their biggest show of offence on the season.
“We’ve still got to try not to overlook the team,” he said.
BACK OUTSIDE
The Eskimos returned outdoors to practice on the Commonwealth Stadium field on Thursday after having been forced inside by an air-quality advisory a day earlier due to smoke from B.C. forest fires.
“I love practising on a full-sized football field, for sure. It was good to be outside,” said Reilly. “You get used to it a little bit once you get out here and it hasn’t been that bad today.”
In 2015, the Eskimos played a pre-season and a regular season game in Fort McMurray, which would be ravaged by wildfire the following year.
“Hopefully, that doesn’t end up coming our way, but it’s just a reminder of how big those fires are, how many of them that there are,” Reilly said. “Dealing with a little bit of smoke is what it is, but I just hope that all the people over there stay safe and there are a lot of people who are going to lose a lot of stuff.
“You just hope that the impact isn’t as great as it probably will be.”