It’s mid-July, so the consequences win or lose are hardly dramatic or season-threatening. After all, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will neither retain nor lose their championship belt when they play host to the Calgary Stampeders Friday night at IG Field.
Still, when two unbeaten squads meet six weeks into the Canadian Football League season – the Blue Bombers are 5-0, the Stamps are 4-0 – the prevailing juicy storylines naturally follow.
As the hype men in boxing would declare: ‘Someone’s ‘O’ has got to go!’
Interesting thing about all that…
“We look at the scouting report each week and it’s funny, because the coaches don’t even put the opponents’ records on them,” said right tackle Jermarcus Hardrick in a chat with bluebombers.com this week. “You find out they’re undefeated by watching them on TV, by looking at the standings or on social media or whatever.
“Osh (Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea) has never talked about our record in all the years I’ve been here. Never. He always talks about positioning ourselves for the playoffs and positioning ourselves for a Grey Cup run.
“That just feeds into our ‘Go 1-0 this week’ mantra. It’s all about winning today, winning tomorrow. Did you win on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at practice so you can win on Friday? And if you lose one day it will be ‘Yesterday wasn’t good enough; today, let’s get it back up to where it needs to be. Let’s be where our feet are. Let’s be present.”
More on the Blue Bombers-Stampeders marquee matchup in this week’s 3 Storylines…
1. WEST DIVISION SHOWDOWN, PART DEUX
All of what is said above still won’t stop fans and media from salivating about the matchup. The Blue Bombers and Stampeders are a combined 9-0 heading into this one and only once in league history have two unbeaten teams combined for a greater record heading into a game – in 1961 Edmonton (7-0) faced Hamilton (4-0) in the regular season.
All this follows last week’s dust-up that then had the 4-0 Blue Bombers facing the 3-0 Lions in Vancouver. And we know how that unfolded.
“Before last week it was ‘B.C. is so explosive’ or ‘B.C.’s defence can do this and that,’” said defensive end Willie Jefferson. “Going into that game we wanted to focus on playing our type of football and, at the same time, go out there and show that team and the rest of the league, the media – everybody – that we are who we are. B.C. might have played some good games, but they weren’t playing against us.
“It’s the same thing against Calgary. They’re a great organization with great players. Now they’ve got to play us at home where we have a lot of confidence.”
Our conversation then morphed into something else, namely, how difficult it is to stay on top.
“It’s not hard to stay at the top, but it is a lot of work to stay at the top,” Jefferson reasoned. “Once you’re at the top you have a target on your back and with that comes a lot of responsibility and opportunities for the opposition to try and take you down.
“But we’ve been chasing greatness for so long and now that we have it, we’ve bottled it. We know how to take care of it and control it. We know how to work efficiently during the week and then when it comes to the game, we can unleash that lightning in the bottle and then when it’s over, put it back and get ready for the next one. It’s not us letting people chase us, it’s us chasing more greatness.”
2. CARLTON’S FIRST DANCE
The Blue Bombers have activated 6-6 receiver Carlton Agudosi for Friday’s game, and he’ll replace Brendan O’Leary-Orange – moved to the six-game injured list on Wednesday – in the starting lineup.
There’s more to this story, however. Agudosi first jumped off the page at training camp last year but did not crack the roster and instead continued to work on the practice squad. He was popping out again at camp this year when he suffered a shoulder injury. So, if it’s true that patience is a virtue, then Agudosi could be up for sainthood.
“I’ve been here since last year and I just want to make my teammates proud,” he said Friday. “They’ve been seeing how hard I work, and they want to see what I do out there.
“It means a lot. I became a better person, a better player since I arrived here which was my goal since the beginning. This is the best time, the right time. This is best I’ve been mentally and physically and I’m just ready to go out there and show what I can do.”
Agudosi played his college ball at Rutgers with current teammate Janarion Grant before getting NFL looks from Arizona and Philadelphia. He was also with the St. Louis Battlehawks in the XFL before that league folded. So… it’s been a while.
“It’s been beautiful,” Agudosi said of his journey. “At different times it’s been harder than others, but the one consistent thing is the work. You really have to self-reflect and see where you can get better. It’s easy to say, ‘Poor me’ but the better thing to do is to see what you can do to be ready when you get your number called. That’s what I’ve been focusing on my whole pro career – steadily getting better and never being satisfied.”
3. BO AND THE DREADED ‘EXPLOSION’ PLAYS
The Blue Bombers have a long and not-so glorious history with Calgary QB Bo Levi Mitchell. His first-ever start came against the Blue Bombers almost nine years ago – July 26, 2013 – and he chewed up Winnipeg by completing 29-of-33 for 376 yards.
He is 12-3 all-time vs. Winnipeg and has the highest winning percentage in CFL history at .795 (88-22-2). He has helped lead Calgary to wins in each of his last seven starts.
As dominant as the Blue Bombers were in last week’s win over B.C., they did get scorched for TD strikes of 66, 36 and three yards – doubling the total scores against them from three to six.
“We’ve yet to put a full game together to what our expectations are,” said Blue Bombers defensive coordinator Richie Hall. “I thought we did a good job, but we’ve got to tighten up those explosion plays. They were contested balls, but at some point, we’ve got to win our share of those 50-50 balls. In a passing league there’s going to be explosion plays but what we’ve got to try and do is minimize them.
“Bo is still an elite quarterback. People forget he was hurt last year and it’s a process to get back. You watch him and each week it seems like he’s getting back to the same Bo. He’s got his confidence, his swagger, his gunslinging attitude back. He’s back to his old self and we’ve got our work cut out for us in terms of trying to stop giving up the big play against him.”
