MAC GETS SMACKED.
After last week’s lacklustre win against the worst team in the league, McMaster’s all-time leader in receptions made a prediction: If his side played like that again on Saturday, against a really good Laurier squad, they’d get killed.
Apparently Dan Petermann’s middle name is Kreskin.
The Marauders again played poorly. And just as he said they would, they got squashed like a bug on a transport truck’s windshield.
How bad was it? It’s rare that a 40-15 score flatters the vanquished, but somehow this one did. A late touchdown, when the game was basically over, changed it from a complete butt-whooping to a mere beat down. It was the likes of which a Mac team hasn’t absorbed since a 58-15 pounding at the hands of Western in 2013.
And this was against Laurier’s second-string QB, who was making his first career start.
The final stats look close. The game never was. After one quarter it was 14-0. At half it was 24-7. After three it was 40-7 and the Golden Hawks were in cruise control.
Even when they did something right, they often offset it with something wrong. Case in point: While the game was still somewhat up for grabs, QB Jackson White hit Petermann with a lovely 48-yard TD pass. It was promptly called back on a holding call. No TD. Threat over. Game pretty much over.
But it wasn’t just that. It was uncharacteristic missed tackles and an ill-timed fumble and many more mistakes that bit the visitors hard.
Even good teams suffer bad losses. What was shocking about this is Mac offered their meekest performance this season with so much on the line. Had they won, they would’ve earned a bye next weekend. A much-needed vacation, as it turns out, since they are banged up and their scheduled bye fell Week One before they’d played a down. Meaning they missed the rest and recovery other teams enjoyed.
A win would’ve got them homefield advantage in the semifinal. Instead, the road to the Yates Cup — and a berth in a hometown Vanier Cup, the dream of every player and the game’s organizers who’d love 24,000 locals in the stands — has now become incredibly bumpy.
Queen’s comes to town Saturday for an OUA quarter-final. The Gaels aren’t great, but they’ve been throttling the league’s weak links. Scoring a lot more points against the same teams than Mac did.
If the Marauders survive that, they’ll almost certainly have to make a return trip to Laurier to face a team that’s become a major thorn in their side. Two years ago, the Golden Hawks upset Mac in the quarters. Last year they eliminated the maroon again in the semifinals.
If a beat-up McMaster side can somehow get through the two teams in the gold uniforms, it’ll likely face Western, which hasn’t lost yet this season.
Saturday could have put Mac on the autobahn to the Yates Cup. Instead, it’s forced them to navigate a field of landmines on route to a title.
Even so, Petermann was finding a positive in the shellacking.
“I think getting beat is going to help us going forward,” he said.
LB Jake Heathcote sang from the same silver-lining playbook.
“There’s something to be learned. There’s probably a lot to be learned from this game. We’re going to be defined down the stretch by how many lessons we can take from this and what we can improve upon.” It has to happen. No choice. This was a huge test Mac failed completely. It hurt, but wasn’t fatal. The next test they flunk, however, will cost them their season.