Un baume pour les partisans Bleus

[Bizz]

Un peu long, mais je crois que ça vaut la peine de mettre ça ici. Sur DotOrg, le dénommé «Thoughts» fait un Top-10 vraiment détaillé à toutes les semaines, et, pour ceux qui n'y vont pas, voici son dernier après la Vanier :

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2018 is fully in the books and we have crowned the R & O for the 10th time. I'll write a longer post on the year in review but, sticking with the formula, here were my Thoughts Gathered;

-Laval did what Laval does which is, in my opinion, take the field with arguably the best talent in the nation and arguably the best coaching on the sideline, but their big key is that they always play well in big games. This Vanier was interesting in that it was almost a polar opposite of last year with the winning team getting out in front quickly and using that to take the losing team out of their comfort zone. The defense was rough and smothering, the OL dominated the trenches, Hugo Richard was absolutely surgical in his dissection of the Mustangs and the WR's made big catches at the right times. The running game didn't do much but it really didn't need to, if they had have ran the ball well it would have been an A++ but I'll stick with a solid A+ for them.

-Western fought well but was outmatched talent wise a bit and, in my opinion, made two gigantic errors in their offensive game plan. (1) The abandoned the run too quickly. I don't care what the score is in the 3rd quarter, if you are Western you need to stick with the running game because it is your bread and butter. Fair enough to go with strictly the passing game late in the 4th but I thought they went to strictly passing way too quickly. (2) Way too much Alex Taylor, not enough Cedric Joseph. While Taylor is a home run hitter and a great back I think Joseph was better suited for this game in that he shows more patience and has better vision. If there is a solid hole Taylor can hit it fast and hard but in this one he often ran right into a semi-hole for a short gain. Joseph tends to stay behind the blocks a bit longer and wait for one to develop. While neither of these things would have changed the fact that Laval was shredding Western on offense and clamped down on them quite well defensively I think it would have given them a better shot to win. Western overall gets a C+ as they not only made those two big mistakes on offense in my opinion, but the defense was either outschemed or just outmatched badly. Were it not for a couple of Hugo Richard misses in the first half Laval could have put up a 50 burger in this one.

-I don't think enough can be said about two factors that clearly played a solid role in the last two Vanier Cups. (1) Playing the AUS prior the Vanier. In both years the eventual champion played the AUS, tuned them up, and was able to rest and be healthy for the big game. Both of the losers had to play the CW rep and, while I know Laval was banged up with injuries overall last year, I can say for sure playing Sask the week before hurt Western in this one as Merchant was clearly not 100%. Now the fact that these two sets of circumstances were the same for each of the winning teams it either cheapens both of their wins or neither, nobody can say it gave anyone an unfair advantage the other one didn't get the prior/following year. The AUS bye is not only hurting the brand of CIS football in that it makes one of the bowl games a joke, it also has hurt the last two Vanier Cups as the losers have been at a clear disadvantage in the big game.

-Can we put the "Montreal is not elite" talk to bed now? I think only one person was saying it at all, and that person tends to get a bit excited during bowl games and make big statements, but it's ridiculous to penalize them for losing 3 times to Laval by 5, 3, and 13 in their 3 games. Montreal scores 7, 15, and 1 on Laval but they held them to 12, 18, and 14 as well. Using transitive logic, which is all we can really do in this system when we get so few crossover games, Laval blew Western out to a 14 point win that was not nearly as close as the score makes it seem. Western blew Sask out to the tune of a 23 point win and Sask blew Calgary out by 27. All of these scores together, which is the only evidence we actually have, paint a picture that Montreal gave Laval their best competition all year.

Top Ten

*****The Truly Elite*****

1. Laval: The easy choice, this version of Big Red was dominant in the big game. I won't rehash the points I made in the Thoughts Gathered section but I will touch again upon Hugo Richard who, in my opinion, gave an all time performance on the big stage. He looked to me like Ben Groulx in that he found the right WR's at the right times and made crucial throws but he added his own solid athleticism and showed a great amount of poise. He had the bad luck of being the R & O qb during their worst run (2014 and 2015) so his career maybe hasn't gotten the attention it should have but he went out with a bang. Another thing to touch on, for a man that has had no problem getting his exploits recognized, Mathieu Betts is an absolute weapon on the DL. He got a few roughing penalties which were well deserved in my opinion (not tackling the QB and choosing to push or strike him and immediately turning around to chase the balls make it plainly obvious you knew he didn't have the ball and could have stopped for sure) but he made his presence felt over and over again. Those will be two big losses for Big Red but, as we have seen before, they reload better than anyone in the nation.

2. Montreal: Cue the haters and those who will call me crazy but hear me out. All we have to judge Montreal really is how they do inside the RSEQ, and how Laval did outside the RSEQ, and they both did very well. They lost all 3 of their games to Laval but two of them were by less than a touchdown and the Dunsmore was a 13 point margin which actually turned out to be the smallest of all the conference titles, bowl games, and the Vanier. Some people will say their offense is very bad but they weren't far off from Western's Vanier output in their best effort of the 3 games against Laval when they put up 15 and, without a garbage time TD by Western, they would have had the best score against Laval all year. The really important point is what they are able to do on defense as they held Laval to 18 in their worst game against them, a score nearly doubled in the Vanier Cup. While it pains me to admit that the best two teams in the country reside outside Ontario (old habits die hard) I just believe that is the case this year.

3. Western: Their Vanier loss came pretty hard as they really weren't that close to Laval all game. Yes it was at the PEPS and yes they played CW the week before but Laval had to do that in 2017 and I didn't cut them much slack when Western handled them in that Vanier. Western is a very strong team with a great offense but their defense, especially on the back end, just wasn't up to it this year on the big stage as Hugo Richard and the WR corp was setting them on fire all day. There's no need to hang the head too far down in London though as losing to Laval at the PEPS, coming off the AUS bye, is not exactly shameful. The stark difference in performance from 2017 to 2018 really shows how much homefield and the AUS bye make a difference on the big stage as the games were almost perfectly reversed. They are still the class of Ontario (by a large margin) and, in my opinion, could probably give Laval better go in a fictitious best-of-3 series than they did in this one off (playing at PEPS for the first time is quite a shock I imagine) but there was nothing to see in that game that says they would beat them at any point. I think Western is the last of the truly elite this year, a statement that should REALLY bring out the hate.

*****The Next Group Down*****

4. Saskatchewan: Sask lost by 23 to Western which is a pretty big margin. They blew Calgary out in the Hardy which is worth a lot but also went 5-3 during the year so they weren't exactly dominant from start to finish. I really like the style of this Huskies team as they had guts and some playmakers that I would LOVE to have on my team (Klassen may have been my favorite player this year, or close to it with Jamie Harry) but they just didn't have the elite talent everywhere across the board that they did back in the mid/early 2000s. Their amazing performance this year should help with that and I think we will see the Huskies rise back to their old position of CW dominance, or at least taking UBC's spot in the annual battle with Calgary for the CW Crown.

5. Calgary: Another great regular season, another bad playoff performance that kills the mojo of the Dinos. It is not that they lost to the Huskies in the Hardy, as the Huskies were a very solid team, it's that they got blown out and wrote another chapter in poor post-season performances (alliteration for the win) in what has become a pretty large book. Again, I don't think they should change coaches but they need to do something as they just can't seem to get over the hump.

*****Everybody Else*****

6. Guelph: They weren't close to Western in the Yates cup but they were there after all and they beat Ottawa who seemed like the 2nd best team in the OUA all season based on results. They're also getting this spot over the next team down by virtue of having a better season record (not counting forfeits) and all of their losses being by very close margins. I also think, and I will sound like PG here, that they are the best positioned team in Ontario to get closer to Western in the near future.

7. UBC: I reallyyyyyy toyed with the idea of bumping them up to #6 but, with their .500 record (without a forfeit win over Regina) combined with the fact that the CW champ lost by 3+ touchdowns in their bowl game against the OUA champ means I just can't do it. This ranking is a combination of facts/results and hunches and I can't ignore a .500 season with a 50 point loss to a team that got beaten by 27 in their playoff loss.

8. Ottawa: They had a solid season but couldn't hang with the elite team in their conference (33-0 loss to Western) and couldn't complete the sweep of the rest of the OUA (they lost to WLU in opener but changed qb's after that and were much better) in losing their playoff game to Guelph. I think they still need to find a QB to carry the team or they need to actually learn to commit to the run, as opposed to committing to it and then abandoning it when the chips are down. Their defense is ready to play with the best (they were left on the field all day against Western and still turned them over 3 times) but the offense is below average.

9. Carleton: Not to beat a dead horse too much as they've been out of the playoffs for 3+ weeks now so I haven't had anything new to say but they need to improve at the coaching and QB spots to take a step forward in the OUA. They have the OL/DL play and the skill position players but turnovers at bad times and one half collapses in games (usually 2nd half) are killing them.

10. Waterloo: I wanted to put a 3rd RSEQ team in this spot but none of them distinguished themselves from the rest of the pack to warrant the choice as they all went 2-6. My reasoning for putting a 3rd one here would have been that the top two teams in the country were in their conference and I don't think there are many teams that wouldn't have suffered blowouts at their hands but, at the end of the day, they were all 2-6 so I couldn't do that. I also wanted to put Manitoba here as, with Western losing handily to Laval, I have a really hard time justifying 5 teams from the OUA in here. Unfortunately the Bisons were 2-6 without the forfeit win and that record is just too poor to get in. Lastly, I thought about putting Regina in here but their last two losses were absolute blowouts at the hands of Sask and Calgary. This leaves us with Waterloo who clearly has a very strong offense but such a bad defense they can't win a game they put up less than 40 in and won't even with those as the defense may give up 50. This spot is really a pickem, I just went with Waterloo because they actually had a .500 record and the Hec Creighton nominee from the OUA. If people wanted to put a 3rd RSEQ team or Manitoba

Outside

-Manitoba, Regina, the Small 3 in the Q: I already discussed them in the #10 spot, basically a 2-6 record is just too poor to get in and Regina seems like they completely gave up at the end of the season.
-Mac: They lost to Waterloo handily at the end of the season and fell short in their comeback bid against Carleton.
-Any AUS team: 63-0 is just too ugly to ignore.
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[Bert]

Des belles fleurs pour les Bleus en effet. Et je suis tout à fait d'accord avec lui sur le fait que Western aurait dû continuer à courir, avec Joseph spécifiquement. Mais peut-être était-il amoché? D'accord avec lui sur l'avantage de jouer l'AUS en demi-finale...Ceci dit, félicitations au R&O et...À l'année prochaine!!

[als4ever]

Tellement d'accord avec cette facette de la "AUS BYE". Un scrimmage au lieu d'une intense partie juste avant la finale, c'est ridicule. Et ça procure un avantage à une équipe à chaque saison.

Ça n'aurait p-e pas changer l'issue des 2 dernières Vanier, mais ça aurait certainement rendu les parties plus serrées et excitantes.

[Sylven]

als4ever wrote

Tellement d'accord avec cette facette de la "AUS BYE". Un scrimmage au lieu d'une intense partie juste avant la finale, c'est ridicule. Et ça procure un avantage à une équipe à chaque saison.

6 des 10 derniers gagnants de la Coupe Vanier avaient affronté le champion des Maritimes en demi-finale canadienne. Ce n'est donc pas automatique, mais ça donne une maudite bonne chance !

[als4ever]

Sylven wrote

als4ever wrote

Tellement d'accord avec cette facette de la "AUS BYE". Un scrimmage au lieu d'une intense partie juste avant la finale, c'est ridicule. Et ça procure un avantage à une équipe à chaque saison.

6 des 10 derniers gagnants de la Coupe Vanier avaient affronté le champion des Maritimes en demi-finale canadienne. Ce n'est donc pas automatique, mais ça donne une maudite bonne chance !

En effet, mais la situation devient de plus en plus grave. Avant, les parties contre l'AUS étaient faciles mais pas automatiques. Mais depuis 2 ans, on parle d'équipe vraiment pathétique. Laval a eu son plus gros blowout en demi-finale Canadienne...

[BigJer]

Et l'année prochaine le RSEQ visite l'AUS

[Sylven]

als4ever wrote

Mais depuis 2 ans, on parle d'équipe vraiment pathétique. Laval a eu son plus gros blowout en demi-finale Canadienne...

Totalement anormal en effet. C'est pour ça que je "milite" depuis quelques années pour l'élargissement des séries nationales à 8 équipes.

Or, il semble que les EC ont voté pour un telle proposition de U Sports et qu'il reste maintenant aux DA à approuver l'entente de principe. Ce serait pour 2020, mieux vaut tard que jamais. Bien hâte que le tout soit confirmé.