Redblacks’ confidence climbing as team wraps up regular season
‘We showed we can be a resilient team,’ Powell says after victory over Ticats
Maybe the answer has been simple all along. Maybe the Ottawa Redblacks just lacked faith, a belief in themselves.
Having played the final game of their Canadian Football League regular season Friday — a comefrom-behind roller-coaster ride of a 41-36 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at the TD Place stadium — it looks as if the Redblacks have discovered a mojo that has them heading in the right direction as they try to defend their Grey Cup championship.
Belief and the swagger that goes with it have carried the Redblacks to three consecutive wins, including two on the road out west. It sure wasn’t there earlier this season as the Redblacks too many times snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. On Friday, though, they stared down adversity and clawed back. They fell behind 16-0 against a tough Ticats team that has looked more like a Grey Cup contender than a non-playoff team during the second half of this season. Belief, eh? Said cornerback Jonathan Rose: ”It’s like Trevor (Harris, Redblacks quarterback) said, ‘You believe in God, but you can’t see him.’ You have to have faith. Until the clock reads zero in the fourth quarter, you don’t give up.”
“The big part is belief, the belief that you can overcome adversity is a huge part of being a good football team,” Redblacks head coach Rick Campbell said. “When it comes down to the fourth quarter, you have to have a belief you’re going to find a way to get it done. When the other team makes a play, you’re not going to go in the tank, you’re going to find a way to rebound. ”
Said Harris: “Early in the season, it felt like, ‘Man, can we hold on and just win this game? Hopefully we can win.’ Now, it’s just like we’re down 11 and it’s like, ‘There’s too much time left. We’re going to win this.’ It’s a different feeling.”
It took a couple of record-setting performances and a 1,000-plusyard rusher, but the Redblacks got it done … somehow, some way.
Greg Ellingson (who wound up with 1,459 receiving yards) broke an Ottawa CFL record for total catches in a season with 96. (The Rough Riders’ Marc Lewis had 94 in 1987). Talented returner/ receiver Diontae Spencer set a league single-game record for all-purpose yards with 496 (133 in catches, 169 on punt returns, 165 on kickoff returns and 29 on a missed field-goal return). With 133 yards on the ground Friday, William Powell broke through the 1,000-yard rushing barrier, finishing with 1,026 in just 12 games.
“We showed we can be a resilient team,” Powell said. “The (past two games), we haven’t had the best first halves, but we showed resiliency, fought back and showed what kind of team we can be.”
“Special teams, that’s my job,” Spencer said. “I’m back there to make plays and provide a spark for this team. That’s what I try to do every play.”
During the regular season, which they finished with a record of 8-9-1, coincidentally the same as they had last year, when they went on to win the Cup, the Redblacks stumbled way too often. Boo-birds were out in force in the early part of Friday’s contest as Harris struggled to find synergy with his receivers. The quarterback wound up completing 26 of 38 passes for 313 yards, but he also tossed three interceptions, a couple of which bounced off his receivers. There was also a scare when Harris, left in the game for a quarterback sneak, was drilled as he tried to lean forward. He left the game and Drew Tate immediately completed a pass to Juron Criner, who completed a 39-yard scoring play.
Said Harris, who returned on the next series: “It felt like somebody burned a match inside my body and it went down. I was pissed when it first happened, I was like, ‘Man, not again … going into the playoffs.’ It was kind of worrisome to me, but, after I started moving around and realized it was just a stinger, I was good.”
Once Harris and his offensive teammates shook off the cobwebs, they moved up and down the field against the Ticats.
“It’s amazing we had that many turnovers and scored 41 points,” Harris said. “It goes to show what we can do and the sort of rhythm we’re getting into, but we have to put together a full game.
“We didn’t play a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination. We moved the ball well, we got the stops when we needed them, and our special teams came through when we needed them.”
“We’ve been on the rollercoaster so long that we’ve learned how to handle it,” Rose said. “We’re putting pressure on ourselves and now we’re getting the wins that we need. Just because the season has gone a certain way doesn’t mean it can’t change in a split second.
“It’s been up, down, up, down. It’s been hard to find a rhythm. As long as you find that rhythm in the playoffs, it doesn’t matter how you do it. Nobody remembers the game, they just remember who won and who lost.”