USports: Bisons - Winnipeg Blue Bombers

The latest news, game recaps, analysis and more on our next door neighbours, the University of Manitoba Bisons.

Bisons Season Comes To End

They got help, but couldn’t help themselves. And as a result the University of Manitoba Bisons football season has come to a sudden stop. The Bisons were mauled 55-21 by the Regina Rams Saturday night in what was their final regular season game of the 2016 Canada West campaign at Investors Group Field. The loss, coming in a game in which they had to win – and get help from the Calgary Dinos, who knocked off the UBC Thunderbirds 41-35 in overtime – dropped the Bisons to 3-5. And it means ...

Bisons Have Final Shot At Playoffs

They’ve got the scars. Man oh man, do the University of Manitoba Bisons ever have the scars to show for the crazy ride their 2016 Canada West football season has been. Yet, here they are heading into the final game of the football regular season at 3-4 and still with a shot at making the playoffs. All this after a bizarre year that has seen them hammered by injuries, suffer some heart-stomping losses, survive an outbreak of the mumps, and then win a seven-overtime contest last week just to ...

Brody Williams Commits to Bisons

University of Manitoba Bisons head coach Brian Dobie has four decades-plus of coaching – and even more, if you include his playing days – on his resume. So yeah, you could say he’s got a thing for ‘old school’ football. And maybe, among other things, that’s what makes Dobie and the Bisons program such a good fit for linebacker Brody Williams, the St. Paul’s Crusaders linebacker who signed his letter-of-intent as the team’s first commit for the 2017 season earlier this week. “Before he ...

Bisons Win Epic Thriller

EDMONTON – Only one word describes this game…epic. The Manitoba Bisons and Alberta Golden Bears locked up into an amazing seven overtime game – the longest Canada West football game in history – that was finally won by the Bisons by a score of 67-59 on Saturday, October 22 at Foote Field in Edmonton. With the epic victory, Manitoba improves to a 3-4 Canada West conference record and still has a chance for a playoff spot while Alberta drops to 1-6 and out of playoff contention. “Regardless ...

Bisons fall 63-6 to Dinos

The University of Manitoba Bisons playoff hopes took a serious downward spin Friday night in Calgary. The Dinos, ranked fifth in the country, mauled the Bisons 63-6 at McMahon Stadium in a critical Canada West Football contest that now drops Manitoba to 2-4 with just two games remaining in the regular season. The loss was the third worst in the history of the Bison program. Calgary, now 5-1, clinched a playoff spot for the 10th consecutive season. The Dinos amassed an astonishing 619 yards ...

Bisons Week 7 Preview

They’ve been beaten up physically and scarred emotionally. And so when the University of Manitoba Bisons return to work this week in Canada West Football action, they know full well if they don’t find their legs and start punching again, their 2016 season could be dealt a serious knock-out blow. The Bisons, 2-3 after a crushing quadruple-overtime 53-50 loss to the UBC Thunderbirds in their last game before last week’s conference bye, are back at it Friday night in Calgary against a 4-1 ...

Bisons Fall to Thunderbirds

VANCOUVER – The University of Manitoba Bisons dropped a quadruple-overtime heartbreaker to the UBC Thunderbirds Friday night, falling 53-50 against the defending Vanier Cup champions. The Bisons came up just shy in an epic game that featured 13 different lead changes at Thunderbird Stadium and fall to 2-3 in the Canada West standings while the T-Birds improve to 3-2. The extra sessions helped, of course, but UBC smashed its old school record for offensive yards with 753 Friday (the old mark ...

Bisons Week 5 Preview

A football coach is always worried about something, be it as significant as the Xs and Os of a tough match-up, to injury concerns, to the little details of a travel schedule. University of Manitoba Bisons head coach Brian Dobie is fretting over all those things in advance of Friday’s critical contest against the CIS defending champion UBC Thunderbirds in a battle of two 2-2 teams trying to remain in the Canada West playoff fight. But he also knows this about his crew: He has a tremendously ...

Bisons Week 4 Preview

Brian Dobie has got a whole repertoire of pre-game speeches, all of them tweaked, edited and updated in a lifetime of playing and coaching the game. But the University of Manitoba Bisons head coach does have a particularly heart-felt one he trots out for the program’s annual Homecoming Game, which comes this Saturday at 1p.m. at Investors Group Field against the Saskatchewan Huskies. “It’s very personal,” said Dobie this week. “I’m an alum at the University of Manitoba, my degree is from ...

Bisons Dominate Alberta for First Win

It came at an absolutely perfect time as a big fat band-aid to cover a gaping and potentially festering wound. And so, while there were still some flaws that definitely need fixing, the University of Manitoba Bisons fully recognize what Friday night’s 42-12 thumping of the Alberta Golden Bears represents: Relief. “I’m honest. I’m an emotional person and I’m truthful about my emotions… I’ll use the ‘relief’ word, for sure,” said Bisons head coach Brian Dobie not long after his squad improved ...

Bisons Still Looking For First Win

They are the kind of games that can emotionally scar a man and his team. And University of Manitoba head coach Brian Dobie will admit last week’s 41-38 loss to the Regina Rams – in which the Bisons surrendered two touchdowns in the final 95 seconds – has wounded his bunch. Big time. “There have been great wins in our program, but there have been great losses… losing the 2001 Vanier Cup when you’re right there,” began Dobie on Thursday. “But in terms of an emotional loss – in Regina, ...

Bisons Set To Face Rams

There might not be a more honest and open coach wearing a headset in Canadian college football than Brian Dobie of the University of Manitoba Bisons. He doesn’t just wear his emotions on his sleeve… he wears them all over, good and bad, happy and sad. And Dobie, admittedly, has got some things to worry about this week with his Bisons as they ready for the second game of their Canada West schedule. He’s down five starters after a Week 1 loss to the Calgary Dinos, and his squad is heading ...

Bisons Botch Opener

It was all the things a coach might expect and curse at the same time about a season opener; it was sloppy and mistake-filled. It was pockmarked by penalties. And, in what hurts most for Brian Dobie and his University of Manitoba Bisons, their 23-14 loss to the University of Calgary Dinos at Investors Group Field Thursday night counts in the standings. “That was an awful CIS game,” said Dobie afterward. “But they were definitely the better team and they got it done and they didn’t make ...

U of M Bisons Season Preview

It’s early – before the ball has been snapped for real early – and yet University of Manitoba Bisons head coach Brian Dobie is already discovering a ton about his 2016 squad that has him gleefully rubbing his hands together. This year’s team may have been stung by some offseason losses – David Onyemata to the New Orleans Saints being the biggest – but there’s a team-first, selfless approach to this bunch that was already on display in a 50-7 preseason victory over UBC last week ...