Gee-Gees have new blood ready to learn and grow
Team hopes to rekindle promise of 2017, cut short by playoff loss to Gryphons
What had been a promising season ended on a sour note for the Ottawa Gee- Gees with a 30-8 loss to the Guelph Gryphons in an Ontario University Athletics football playoff quarter-final in 2017.
Now the Gee- Gees hope to take the lessons learned then and push ahead into a 2018 season that begins Sunday at Waterloo against the Laurier Golden Hawks. A tough start to the schedule for the Gee-Gees continues with home games against the McMaster Marauders in Week 2 and the Guelph Gryphons in Week 3. Another home-field matchup with the national champion Western Mustangs looms later in the season on Oct. 13.
“We’re going to be tested early, that’s good for us,” said receiver Kalem Beaver, one of three GeeGees — the others were defensive backs Cody Cranston and Jamie Harry — invited to the East-West Bowl last year. “We play a lot of fundamentally sound teams.”
Gee-Gees head coach Jamie Barresi has high hopes, saying he expects the Gee- Gees to continue progressing as the season winds along. There are 17 returning starters, plus some talented youngsters ready to step in and step up.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea what we have. It’ll be verified … let’s put it that way,” Barresi said. “Winning everything and going to the (OUA final) Yates Cup, that would be a successful season.”
When asked if the season would be a failure if the end result was anything but a championship, Barresi said: “Not necessarily. There are a lot of things we’re looking for. We’re not, obviously, where we want to be here right now. We have a lot of youth here. Watching them grow will be a big test for us. We’re young, and we have some really good prospects. Some kids maybe who haven’t played a lot, but I’m really anxious to watch them.
“(The players) have a belief. We talk about that all the time. These games can go either way, obviously. We don’t just measure success with a win or a loss, though that is important. We’re competing against ourselves in that we’re trying to get better every day. Scoreboard is important, but there are other things, too, that measure it. We’ll keep getting better, I’m certain.”
To improve on last year’s 5-3 regular-season record, the GeeGees will need to make strides offensively. Key to that will be the play of the starting quarterback, but Barresi wouldn’t say Friday who would stand behind centre to start the season.
“We expect to be back where we were (offensively in 2016),” he said. “We were usually in the top three or four in the country in production. That’s what we need.”
Cranston said Gee- Gees players are excited to start the season.
“We’re pretty similar to last year, but we’re one year older, one more year experienced,” he said. “There are some big games, especially early in the season. We look at that as a challenge. We’ll play those teams hard and we know in the long run that’ll make us better for the playoffs. It’s more about our team playing well and feeling like we’re putting in the effort than it is about the wins.”
Among the key players from the 2017 roster who have since moved on to the Canadian Football League are defensive lineman Khadim Mbaye and defensive back Ty Cranston ( both Montreal Alouettes), linebacker/defensive back Jackson Bennett (Hamilton TigerCats) and, of course, kicker Lewis Ward, who has been sensational with the Ottawa Redblacks. Replacing them will be tough.
“We have a lot of young guys who
are being asked to step up and play roles they haven’t been in before,” Beaver said.
Asked about his own development, Beaver said he had “come a long way from when I first started. A lot of guys who were here before me taught me the way. Now it’s my turn to step up.”
Barresi said the recruiting class brought in last year, particularly on the defensive and offensive lines, had given the Gee- Gees “a big boost. The linebacker group as well, plus we’ve made some strides at quarterback, and that’s a big help.”