Tasker catches fire … as Cats catcher

It’s a post-practice ritual the TigerCats could charge you admission to watch.

The Jugs gun — a device that fires footballs from a fixed stand — hums at high revs.

Receivers take turns catching the balls at varying speeds and distances.

And with their bodies in different positions.

Often, the catches are made — deliberately — one-handed.

No one does this more often than Luke Tasker.

Over his four seasons here, no one is even close. He never misses a day, “unless we have something else we have to do.” And then he probably does it in his sleep.

“He takes his craft very seriously and works on it every day,” says head coach Kent Austin.

“He already has natural Godgiven ball skills, but that’s not good enough for him. He’s going to catch 100 balls right now, just to make sure he’s ready to play.”

That is why Tasker is tied for the CFL lead, among those who’ve been targeted regularly, for the ratio of passes caught to those thrown toward him. He and Andrew Harris of Winnipeg are each at 88 per cent. Tasker’s running mate Andy Fantuz is right up there too, at 84 per cent.

But many of Harris’ catches are on routes swinging out of the backfield into space, while Tasker and Fantuz are usually targeted in the dirtiest portion of the field — over the middle and in the short near-flats where they have a good chance of being, oh, beheaded.

Both do a good job of hanging onto the ball in tough conditions, although each has had a fumble in the early going of a loss: Fantuz in the second series against B.C.; Tasker in the first series against Winnipeg.

And both make great catches, some of them on uncatchable balls.

Tasker, for his part, feels his best was that memorable contortionist act in Montreal last year when he kept his shoulder closed to the defender, bent his head back to allow the underthrown ball to nestle over it and into his hands, all as he drifted away from cover.

“At my absolutely best, the ball’s in the air and nothing else matters,” he explains.

“I play best when I’m excited about the possibility of making a difficult catch, being excited to make a play that not everybody could make.

“I play better all around, even with the easy catches, if I’m just excited to make plays.

“So I try to go into a game with that mindset — there might be a chance to make a spectacular catch.

“I haven’t had any crazy catches this year, but when the ball is in the air I want an alarm to go off, everything to fall away, nothing else matters, forget the coverage, forget what route it was, attack it and catch it.”

Tasker has 23 catches in three games, well on pace to blow by his career high of 76. With Fantuz’s 21, they are the second most prolific receiving tandem in the league — one back of the Redblacks’ Chris Williams and Brad Sinopoli, who’ve caught 45 between them.

In terms of a Big Three, the Cats’ Tasker, Fantuz and Chad Owens have 60 catches, one fewer than Ottawa’s Williams, Sinopoli and Greg Ellingson.

Austin says Tasker got over last week’s fumble, when he was uncharacteristically stripped of the ball, before the next offensive set, because he’s professional enough to know that dwelling on a mistake can beget other errors. Tasker agrees. “I had to tell myself right on the sidelines that there were going to be a lot more chances for me to make plays,” he says. “It does bother me and I always pride myself on crossing my arms to hold the ball in because I catch a lot of balls right over the middle.

“I thought I was closer to getting a first down than I was, so I fought too hard and stood up too high.

“There’s a learning point in there.”

Of course there is, or this wouldn’t be Luke Tasker.