Players get the scoop with Chamblin
Aggressive approach is the main takeaway with Boatmen’s new coach
Shawn Lemon remembers the lecture well. And the one after that. And after that.
Then the Toronto Argonauts defensive co-ordinator, Corey Chamblin made it clear on the first day of training camp in 2017 he wanted his players to scoop up any loose ball — incomplete pass, fumble or otherwise — that hit the turf in practice.
The idea was for it to become second nature when the games mattered most.
“He understands the importance of the small details,” Lemon said. “They go a long way.”
It would pay massive dividends six months later in the Grey Cup when Cassius Vaughn was in the right place at the right time to return a fumble a CFL-record109 yards for a touchdown in the team’s stunning 27-24 victory against the heavily-favoured Calgary Stampeders at Ottawa’s TD Place.
“Just the little things we put in from Day 1,” Lemon, a veteran Toronto defensive lineman, recalled this week after a long practice session at York University. “Who would have known that would be the play that helped win us the Grey Cup?”
Two years later, Chamblin is hammering home similar points at his first camp as head coach of the Argonauts.
“Aggressive,” Chamblin, a native of Birmingham, Ala., said of the identity he wants to see from his team. “They have to have an aggressive mindset and make sure we attack any obstacle that’s in front of us. We want to attack our goals and meet our goals.
“The biggest thing is every day they have to be better than the day before.”
Argonauts fired head coach Marc Trestman after a disastrous 4-14 campaign in 2018. Chamblin had moved on to become an assistant at the University of Arkansas after the Grey Cup win.
“When I left I didn’t have eyes to return,” he said. “I didn’t think it would turn the way it did, but it turned.” Chamblin was Saskatchewan’s head coach for 3 1⁄2 seasons, leading the Roughriders to a Grey Cup victory in 2013. He had a combined regularseason and playoff record of 3434.
The soon-to-be-42-year-old will also reassume his defensive co-ordinator role with the Argonauts, a unit that allowed a league-worst 560 points in 2018. The previous season under his guidance, Toronto had six East Division all-stars and tied for the CFL lead with 50 sacks.
James Franklin will be given every opportunity to grab hold of the starting quarterback job after letting it slip through his fingers last season when Ricky Ray went down with what would turn into a career-ending neck injury. Franklin was eventually benched in favour of McLeod Bethel-Thompson, who remains No. 2 on the depth chart, but is looking for a fresh start under a new coach, a new offensive co-ordinator in Jacques Chapdelaine, and another weapon in free-agent wide receiver Derel Walker.
“His personality’s aggressive … mine’s smiling,” Franklin said of Chamblin. “That’s been helping me because he’s building my confidence and also challenging me to be stronger mentally.”