Explosive Samoil gives elite treat
Record-setting Edmonton Wildcats running back Jordan Samoil is living a dream.
He’s also creating flashbacks for some of the Wildcats coaches, who coached and/or played with running backs Tristan Jones and Dean Jones (not related) during their remarkable junior football seasons in 2006 and 1996, respectively.
“If you look at the record book, there’s three guys from Edmonton in the top five, and Jason Dailey and Vince (Baraniecz) are going to be with all three of them,” Wildcats head coach Darcy Park said about two of his coaches. “They played with Dean with the Huskies.”
Actually, Samoil just bumped Dean (327 yards) to sixth place when he rushed for 365 yards against the Edmonton Huskies last week to break former Wildcat Tristan’s Prairie Football Conference record of 344 yards in ’06 and the Canadian Junior Football League record of 355 yards set by Craig Carter of the Windsor AKO Fratmen in 1999. “That was a pretty big accomplishment for the whole offence,” said Samoil, an 18-year-old rookie.
The first-year University of Alberta engineering student is shy when talking about his accomplishments, but later acknowledged that getting the record was “a pretty special moment.”
Samoil may find it more difficult to keep up with the Joneses over the course of an entire season. Tristan set the CJFL records of 1,903 rushing yards and 26 touchdowns while Dean ranks second with 1,666 yards.
Samoil has a league-leading 1,279 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns after six games, but there are only two regular-season contests remaining, including Sunday’s 1 p.m. clash with the Saskatoon Hilltops (5-1) at Clarke Field.
“Saskatoon’s got a really good team, so their defence most likely won’t allow that,” he said about repeating last week’s outing. “So I’ll just have to get what I can this week.”
The Wildcats (4-2) need to win to have a chance at hosting a playoff game in Edmonton. Meanwhile, the Huskies (0-6) will have their hands full with the league-leading Calgary Colts (6-0) at 7 p.m. Saturday at Clarke Field.
Baraniecz, the Wildcats’ offensive co-ordinator, said the two Joneses and Samoil have different aspects to their games, “but watching a first-year kid go out there out of nowhere and explode on the season is something special to watch.
“I didn’t know we were going to be this good because everyone was a rookie in our backfield. We were leaning toward the pass game and, all of a sudden, this exploded on us, which was nice,” he said.
“This” was Samoil, who didn’t even play football in high school until Grade 12 because of knee injuries.
Now he’s also tied a CJFL record with two 300-yard rushing games (both against the Huskies). He had two long touchdown runs of 58 and 60 yards in the final three minutes and two seconds of a wild fourth quarter against the other Edmonton team to clinch a Wildcats’ victory last week.
“He’s just got a knack for the end zone when he’s close to it,” Park said. “If you put a stopwatch on him on the field, he might not run a super-fast 40, but in those last two minutes, he outran guys who had angles on him.”
“We felt like we needed to put the game away at the end there,” Samoil said. “The best way to do it was to score touchdowns.”
Park said 2006 was “a special year” when Tristan Jones “was a huge part of us getting to the national championship.
“To have that happen again and be a part of it is neat,” he said, referring to Samoil’s unexpected performance. “For a first-year kid to be able to set that example and have the success he’s had and still maintain an even keel, it’s been good.”