2024 CFL Week 5: BC Lions at Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Steven Chang/BC Lions
The whirlwind that was last week is in the rearview mirror. Nathan Rourke and the 5-5-0 BC Lions are now focusing on a Saturday night battle against the 6-2-1 Ottawa Redblacks in our nation’s capital to begin a unique home-and-home series.
Rourke and the entire team have owned up to the shortcomings following another lacklustre effort against Winnipeg. Now it’s about trying to solve a stingy Ottawa defensive unit that has allowed only 17.8 points and 282 net yards per game thus far. Get ready for a true litmus test as they aim to climb back above the .50 mark.
“They’re very well coached. I think their defensive line, their box, is very good,” Rourke said the Redblacks.
“They’ve got some really good players out there making a lot of plays, they’re playing really fast right now. They’ve kind of hit their stride as a defence and I think they’re playing really confident. It’s going to be very important for us to execute and to be able to adjust on the fly to what they’re doing. We know what their scheme is going to be. We just have to be able to execute it. Like I said, very good players out there and we have to respect them.”
As for this Lions team, they can continue to draw motivation from the fact that they are capable of stringing together a few wins in succession. William Stanback was part of a Grey Cup championship team in Montreal that hit a few rough spots in the regular season before getting hot when it counted. Despite being one of the newer guys in this locker room, the running back can already see they are coming to work with the right approach.
“It’s like a re-start. Making sure that we’re on time for the meetings, making sure we’re putting the right things in our bodies, exercising and stretching and getting the treatment that we need so we’re physically capable to go out here and dominate,” Stanback said.
“We say it all the time: dominate, reset, dominate. That’s the motto that we go by and I truly believe it ever since I heard it. That’s what we have to do the last half of this season.”
In this short week of practice, the mood suggests they are set to back that approach and not look too far down the road.
“It definitely is crucial. It’s a big game because it’s the next one,” Rourke added.
“We’ve got these guys twice and it would be a huge win for our team if we can get something going in the environment like we’re going to get on a Saturday night in Ottawa. Great place to play. So, we’re looking forward to that. We’re going to have to take it one play at a time.”
And it will very likely take all 60 minutes on Saturday.
The Quarterbacks
# 12 Nathan Rourke- was victorious in his only other meeting against the RedBlacks in week four of the 2022 campaign where he threw for 359 yards and two majors while adding a 50-yard touchdown on the ground as the Lions prevailed 34-31 to improve to 3-0 for the first time since 2012.
# 3 Dru Brown- looks to be back after going down with an injury in the tie against Saskatchewan two weeks ago. Brown’s lone start against the Lions came as a Winnipeg Blue Bomber in October 2022 in a 40-32 loss at BC Place. The Bombers rested Zach Collaros that night as first place in the West was already sewn up. Through eight games this season, Brown has completed 151 of 230 passes for 1,936 yards and six touchdowns against four interceptions.
3 Lions To Watch
DL # 0 Sione Teuhema- with five sacks in his last four games, Tehuema leads all CFL defenders over that span. The defensive line will look to cause havoc against the multi-dimensional Ottawa attack.
WR # 4 Keon Hatcher- suits up in his fourth game since returning from injury. Is it time for him and Rourke to re-kindle their 2022 chemistry? We think it just might be.
RB # 31 William Stanback- you’ve seen first-hand how beneficial it has been the last two games to ground and pound out of the backfield. This matchup features two solid ones in Stanback and the Redblacks’ Ryquell Armstead.
Extra Yards
Fans can watch on TSN and RDS2 while viewers south of the border and internationally can stream on CFL+. Bob Marjanovich and Giulio Caravatta have the call on 980 CKNW and the Lions Audio Network with pre-game coverage at 3:00. Harp Pandher and Taqdeer Thindal have the call on Sher-E-Punjab Radio AM 600.
Campbell takes a 5-0 lifetime record against his former squad into Saturday night. This includes sweeps in the 2021 and 2022 seasons and last year’s thrilling 19-point fourth-quarter comeback at BC Place in their lone meeting, aided by a Terry Williams missed field goal return touchdown to get the ball rolling. Campbell was named the first head coach in Redblack history on December 6, 2013 and led the squad to three Grey Cup appearances in four seasons, winning it all in 2016 in a major upset against the Calgary Stampeders. The Redblacks will formally celebrate their tenth anniversary season on Saturday.
The Redblacks also celebrate their tenth anniversary on Saturday. More on that with TSN 1200’s voice of Ottawa football A.J. Jakubec on this week’s 1st and Now podcast. As Jakubec points out, Campbell coached every RedBlack’s All-Decade team member save for defensive line stud Lorenzo Mauldin.
Only one roster change this week: defensive end Pete Robertson is headed to the six-game injured list with a lingering foot ailment. Jonah Tavai moves to his spot with Marcus Moore returning to his interior spot.
The only other time in Lion franchise history they lost four straight immediately after winning five or more in a row was 2005, after the squad’s infamous 11-0 start.
This game marks the first of five straight Lion games against the East Division. After this, it’s Touchdown Pacific against the same Redblacks, a trip to Montreal and then home games against Toronto and Hamilton with a bye in between.
Stanback accounted for 112 of the Lions’ 303 net yards against Winnipeg. His 100 rushing yards marked the first time he hit the century mark on the ground since joining the team.
Battle of the kicker titans: Sean Whyte and Lewis Ward go toe-to-toe this week with Whyte recently passing his Ottawa counterpart for the best all-time CFL field goal percentage (88.4 to 88.2 per cent). With 46 straight field goals made, Whyte is inching closer to Ward’s all-time CFL record of 69.