There have been worse starts to a game, we suppose, although this had to rank right up there on some sort of unofficial list of awful.

We take you back to last Friday in Ottawa and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers first possession of their regular season finale. The contest was less than a minute old when, on second-and-six from the Winnipeg 46-yard line, quarterback Matt Nichols found Rory Kohlert for what should have been a first down. Instead, the pass bounced off the intended target to Nicholas Taylor who then weaved through the Bombers for a 57-yard interception return touchdown.

And so 72 seconds in, it’s 7-zip Ottawa.

Now, it’s what happened in the moments afterward – how Nichols chose to respond – that says a lot about why so many are eager to follow the man into this Sunday’s West Division Semifinal in Vancouver against the B.C. Lions.

He could have ranted – and if you’ve seen how fiery he is on game day that would have been almost expected – but instead the veteran pivot took a different approach. Walking into the huddle on their next possession, with the Ottawa crowd still at full throat after Taylor’s TD, Nichols looked around at the 11 other faces staring back at him, grinned, and said:

“All right, now that we’ve got that out of our system…”

Now, what happened next wasn’t exactly Hollywood – the Bombers rallied for a 33-20 victory with Nichols throwing for two touchdowns and 299 yards – but it is emblematic of what his leadership has meant in this team’s transformation this season.

The Bombers are 10-3 under Nichols since he replaced Drew Willy as the starter in late July. And while there are certainly others in the herd with the ability to lead, the quarterback is always the bell cow.

His first start came in Edmonton back on July 28^th with the team 1-4 and the vultures circling overhead. And on the very first possession of that game, Nichols & Co. drove the ball 85 yards in eight plays and capped it with a one-yard Andrew Harris TD run.

That’s the moment when most believe this team was sparked. But receiver Weston Dressler, a man who has been in more than a few huddles during a nine-year career, traces the moment back to the week prior, when Nichols relieved Willy late in a home loss to the Calgary Stampeders.

“We were down, Matt came in and I just remember him in the huddle,” began Dressler. “It was the way he carried himself. He was talking to everybody in the huddle. It was, ‘Be ready for this, be ready for that’ and ‘All right, let’s go here.’ We broke the huddle and it was like there was a bigger sense of urgency and we knew who was in charge.

“It was, ‘OK, all right… let’s follow this guy.’”

Weston Dressler

Whatever the ‘It’ is that so many talk about with the ‘It Factor’ – that combination of physical skills and the mental acuity to know how and when to push teammates – Nichols has all that and then some.

The Edmonton Eskimos saw it first when they brought the Eastern Washington product north as their potential next starter. But after he had struggled with injuries while Mike Reilly was establishing himself as their No. 1 gun, the Esks opted to move on and shipped him to the Bombers for a mid-round draft pick last September.

As solid as he was last year upon his arrival with Willy hurt, he was still re-signed this winter essentially to be the No. 2 man. And that seemed to be the role everyone had locked him into before Bombers coach Mike O’Shea inserted Nichols late in the Calgary loss and then handed him the starting chores a week later in Edmonton.

Fast forward to semifinal weekend and it could be said Nichols’ story – a guy getting up off the mat to deliver punches after being knocked down – in many ways perfectly mirrors what has happened with this football team this season.

“From the second Coach O’Shea told me I was playing, my switch turned on and I reverted back to my college days and how to be a team leader in every aspect,” Nichols told bluebombers.com this week. “The main thing for a quarterback is to be consistent and so from the moment he told me ‘The ball is yours’ until now I feel like I’ve approached it the same every game, week in, week out. I think to be successful as a quarterback you have to have that consistency.

“To me, leadership is a combination of things. It’s in the locker room, it’s being locked in in the film room, it’s speaking up and basically being like an extra coach so that the players know what I’m talking about. It’s getting fired up on the sidelines or after big plays and in the huddle joking around to keep things kind of loose. That’s part of the quarterback’s job: to keep his team from getting on that emotional roller-coaster.”

Some of this is innate – his father Steve played the position in high school and for a spell at Shasta College in California – and some of it is simply the by-product of studying the position for years.

“I’ve been playing this position since second grade,” said Nichols. “You feel out what works and what doesn’t your whole life. Plus, it’s just how I was raised. My dad taught me to respect everyone and how to handle adversity. He instilled a lot of those traits in me from a young age.”

Whatever and however this has all come together for Nichols and the Bombers, it just works. This team needed a spark and jolted them to life. And the man teammates call ‘Matty Ice’ has got a fierce want-to burning inside him that has stoked the Bombers engine since he was first tapped on the shoulder and handed the starting chores.

“He’s got a fire in him,” said Dressler. “He’s had this opportunity to seize a No. 1 quarterback spot which he’s fought for throughout his career in the CFL. He went into that Edmonton game like he was going to leave everything on the field and take charge, take control of this team and steer us in the right path.

“It’s the way he carries himself. It’s been a pleasure and a lot of fun to play with him. There’s a contagious fire to him. You see outside of football and then when he’s on the field… there’s a fire in his eye and something special comes out of him.

“And all the guys have jumped on board.”

BOMBER REPORT – November 10, 2016

The Blue Bombers (11-7) are in Vancouver Sunday afternoon to face the B.C. Lions (12-6) in the West Division Semifinal.

Here are three things you should know as the club wrapped up its final preparations before flying to Vancouver Saturday…

IT’S GO TIME… ALMOST

The Bombers had their last full practice before Sunday’s game and closed it to the media and fans. CFL teams have the option of closing one practice per week all season, but this is the first time the Bombers have opted to do so this year – just as other teams have done this week.

And so when head coach Mike O’Shea conducted his post-practice media conference, the first question was a simple one: How was practice?

The Bomber boss grinned and then said: “Excellent.”

“It seems pretty consistent. I wouldn’t say it’s deviated too much from our standard mood. They’ve worked hard. They had fun at practice, it looks like.”

The Bombers have some roster decisions to make, with Ian Wild and Khalil Bass having returned to the linebacking corps, Clarence Denmark back at receiver, Justin Cole at defensive end, and both Travis Bond and Sukh Chung lining up again at left and right guard.

PUNCH/COUNTER-PUNCH

The Bombers swept the season series with the Lions 2-0, but only by a combined total of five points. Beating one team three times in a season is difficult, but not impossible. Ditto for losing three times to one team in a season.

All that said, O’Shea doesn’t expect the Lions to rip up their playbooks prior to Sunday.

“When B.C. gets 12 wins I don’t think they’re going to deviate much from their identity,” he said. “Will there be a play here or a play there that seems new or has a wrinkle in it? Absolutely. But I don’t know why you would try to change your identity when you’ve got 12 wins.”

BRING IT

Clarence Denmark’s last playoff game was the 2011 Grey Cup as the Bombers fell to the Lions. And so, heck yeah, it’s been a lot time between playoff tilts.

And what he remembers about the postseason is this: “I know that the intensity level goes up a lot. Every mistake counts and you’ve got to be ready to go out and play.”

Interestingly, while everyone focuses on all the weapons the Lions offence rolls out – Jonathan Jennings, Manny Arceneaux, Bryan Burnham, Chris Rainey, etc. – Denmark spoke of what the Bomber attack left unfinished in their two wins over B.C.

“In those two games we feel like we left a lot of plays out there on the field. I think if we just come out and play a complete game, I don’t think it will be close.”