Ticats desperate for win against Redblacks
Another week, another period of serious evaluation on the part of Kent Austin.
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats head coach and vice-president of football operations vowed again late Saturday night that “if we need to make changes, we will.”
Contemplating the quality of his staff and players is becoming a habit for Austin, the man in charge of the 0-7 Ticats, the lone club in the Canadian Football League in 2017 without a victory.
The latest debacle came at Tim Hortons Field on Saturday when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers spanked the Ticats to the tune of 39-12, marking the fifth time Hamilton has lost by at least 15 points.
After defensive co-ordinator Jeff Reinebold was fired and replaced with linebackers coach Phillip Lolley, and after assistant head coach June Jones had an opportunity to establish some of his ideas on offence, the Ticats suffered their second-worst loss of the season. Only the 60-1 loss in Calgary on July 29 was more lopsided.
Austin put forth the idea that the difference for the Ticats is coming in three or four series a game, using the two losses to the Edmonton Eskimos in recent weeks ( by three points and five points, respectively) as examples, and insinuating the same could be said of the fall to Winnipeg.
The challenge from the coach’s office, if that’s true, and the locker-room is to build the mental strength to overcome on-field lapses.
“It’s going to take some strong leadership, for sure, in that room,” Austin said. “I told the team that everybody needs to take a real honest look about their play and we need to be honest with them about what we are asking them to do as coaches and not put our head in the sand.”
One has to wonder whether further significant changes would come if the Ticats lose their next game, against the visiting Ottawa Redblacks, on Friday night. A record of 0-8 to begin the season would equal the Ticats’ secondworst start, as it occurred also in 1991 and 2005. No one in the room wants to be reminded of 2003, when the Ticats went 0-12 before winning.