Argos drawing a line for Ray
You could glance at a CFL stat sheet and see a dominant Argonauts passing attack —Toronto leads the league with 364.4 yards per game through six weeks — but when the team’s offensive linemen view those numbers they see room for improvement.
Even as quarterback Ricky Ray strung together five straight 300-yard games the Argos’ offensive line faltered, surrendering 10 sacks through five weeks, a troubling number for a pivot who has suffered serious injuries in each of the last two seasons.
The Argos held the Ottawa Redblacks to just one sack in a 27-24 win Monday, boosting the confidence of a unit that hopes to carry that momentum into Saturday’s matchup with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
“We all agreed that we showed some improvement last week, but we also agreed that we might have been underperforming before,” starting centre Sean McEwen said. “The standard we played at on Monday is the standard we should continue to play at the rest of the season.”
But as Argos linemen seek to build on Monday’s performance, the team’s schedule complicates that process.
With only four full days between games, the Argos had to scale back this week’s training, opting for walkthroughs instead of padded practices and ramping up video study in lieu of intensive on-field work.
By next Thursday the Argos will have played three games in nine days, but head coach Marc Trestman doesn’t see the cramped schedule as an inconvenience since every CFL team will face a similar stretch.
“We’ve elected to do it this way, to keep them off their feet as much as possible,” Trestman said. “Minimize the hitting and get as mentally ready to play as we possibly can. That’s the best we can do, and we’ll see on Saturday.”
In this case, it means preparing to meet a Saskatchewan team that has managed just one win in four games but has posted solid defensive numbers. The Roughriders rank second in the CFL in total defence (343 yards per game) and passing defence (241yards per game), while registering five quarterback sacks.
Fourth-year defensive lineman Willie Jefferson leads the Roughriders with two sacks, bringing his career total to 15.
“So we decided to go the opposite route and pick the largest tigers they had,” Jenna said. “You definitely get an adrenalin rush, ‘Am I going to come out of this cage alive?’ ”
The happy couple came out just fine, which made sense; it’s the previous generation of pro golfers that was routinely mauled by Tiger. Hughes, for his part, said he enjoys having an occasional adventure that’s slightly more far-flung and exotic than, say, a wayward drive into knee-high fescue.
“A lot of my time is spent on the golf course or doing something related to golf. So anytime I can do something a little different, I’m always up for it,” Hughes said. “I try not to risk my life too many times.”
That’s “times,” plural. And he and his wife have more than one disaster-defying activity on their resumes. A few years back, when Hughes was a rookie on the Web.com Tour, a missed cut at an event in central Mexico led the couple to plan a spur-of-the-moment trip to the beach in their rental car. The only problem was the beach turned out to a seven-hour drive through the Mexican scrub. The couple, following a hand-drawn map, didn’t even have a GPS.
“Our bellboy at our hotel said, ‘Just follow this road and it’ll take you there,’ ” Jenna said. “At some point, we had no idea where we were. We were in a rental car where the doors didn’t lock. The trunk just flew open at one point. We saw a dead cow on the side of the road. We saw a dead horse. Very unusual things.”
Said Hughes: “That drive through Mexico was literally life or death. But we still made it through. We enjoy the odd adventure. Our parents weren’t thrilled with it. But it’s a great story now.”
Great story, indeed. And, hey, they did end up getting their beach vacation, even if Jenna remembers it costing them about $500 in penalties to drop off their rental car on the coast and fly home from there. Still, both Jenna and Mackenzie said they probably wouldn’t repeat such a road trip these days.
“We’re a little more wise,” Jenna said. “But you have to have (a sense of adventure). Otherwise you’re working all the time. You have to take time out and remember you’re still human. You’ve got to have fun, adventurous things in your life.”
This weekend the journey around Glen Abbey has the potential to be hairy enough for Hughes. For a Canadian in contention at the national championship, the experience of being bathed in the true patriot love of the throng always is. But Hughes, as much as he’s never made the cut at the national championship, has been here before more than once. He played the course as a junior eight or nine times. And he appeared in the tournament as an amateur and as a rookie pro in 2012 and 2013, respectively. He missed the past few editions of the championship because he was busy earning his way on the Web.com Tour, a labour that ultimately put him on the PGA Tour this season. So things are different this time, in a good way.
“Before I played in the Canadian Open and it was like the biggest tournament in my life every time. Now, it’s a huge deal, but I’ve played in majors,” said Hughes, who played in the Masters back in April. “I’m just a bit more comfortable being out there on the course.”
What’s not to be comfortable about? This week the doors lock in Hughes’s courtesy car. And there hasn’t been a Tiger on the grounds since 2000.