No football team has ever won back-to-back Hardy Cups on the road but the University of Regina Rams can change all that on Saturday.
A Ram win over the University of Saskatchewan Huskies in Saskatoon, just a year after beating the Huskies 19-14 to win last year's Canada West championship, would accomplish such a feat for the first time since this championship game first became a thing back in 1976.
In a game that will be heard live on www.620ckrm.com, the Rams, who are ranked seventh in Canada will visit the Huskies who enter the week ranked third in the nation. But the Rams will have to go it without their big star on offence, Marshall Erichsen, who led the conference in rushing this season, accounted for 39% of the Rams total offence throughout the regular season and nearly half of all touchdowns scored by the team. Erichsen is out for the remainder of the playoffs with a torn achilles tendon.
Head coach Mark McConkey admits it's a serious blow but insists the Ram offence has other weapons it can rely on in the absence of Erichsen and the team's other second-down security blanket, Renzel Arinaza, who's also been out with injury since the end of the regular season.
"Rylan Sokul is not flashy but he always does the right thing. He catches well. Quarterbacks always know where he's going to be and (Emmett) Steadman with the big catch at the end of the game last week. He's always reliable. Those guys are always safe, reliable targets," McConkey said.
Christian Katende was the team's main running back in last year's Hardy Cup triumph when he rushed for 101 yards on 19 carries. With sub-zero temperatures in the forecast, this year's rematch is expected to feature a lot of running plays with both main running backs having grown up in Regina. Katende for the Rams who played his high school football at Winston Knoll Collegiate pitted against Ryker Frank for the Huskies, who went to Leboldus High School.
The Rams most dangerous deep threat receiver, all-star wide-out Nic Sirleaf, who scored a late first half go-ahead touchdown in the last Ram-Huskie game played in Saskatoon back in September in what turned out to be the U-of-R's only road loss of the season, says big plays are still on the table, despite the chilly November weather expected Saturday at Griffiths Stadium.
"I don't know how exactly how the game is going to go but I know that when my opportunity comes, I'm going to take advantage of it," Sirleaf said. "The Huskies have great defensive backs, their boundary halfback specifically (fellow all-star Anesu Latmore) but if we play our game, our best brand of football, we will win."
"I think it'll be fine," McConkey said. "Minus-4 is not too bad. It's cold but it's not like minus-20 which is a different beast. No wind, no snow and no rain. I think it will be just like a normal football game as always."
Ironically, the Rams suffered a 22-20 loss in Saskatoon this season, the identical score of a game they lost at the same venue late last season before ultimately upsetting the Huskies in the 2024 Hardy Cup. The irony is not lost on Regina's head coach.
"Let's hope history repeats itself and we go up there and get a win. It's kind of weird that we lost by the same score up there in a very similar type of game. They just made a few more plays than we did. We didn't execute when we needed to. If everything goes according to plan, it will be just like last year."
This game will feature the top two receivers in Canada West this season, Saskatchewan Roughrider draft pick Daniel Wiebe of the Huskies and Sirleaf for the Rams. Wiebe is expected to play an especially big role in the absence of Huskie quarterback Anton Amundrud, who has not been healthy enough to play since week 5. Backup and second-year-man Jake Farrell has been at the controls since week 6 and will be matched against Owen Sieben quarterbacking the Rams, a change from any of the previous Huskie-Ram showdowns in the past two years which have always pitted Amundrud against Regina's Noah Pelletier.
"He's (Farrell) a great runner," McConkey said. "He's kind of like (Manitoba quarterback) Jackson Tachinski. Maybe not as big but he's elusive, He's sneaky. He finds ways out of the pocket and can hurt you with his feet so that's something we've got to be ready for and are preparing for."
The stakes are sky-high for both sides in this, the first year of the Vanier Cup game being played in Regina and second time its ever been played in the province. Whoever wins Saturday will be two wins away from winning it all and host the winner of Ontario's conference championship, either Laurier or Queens, next weekend. Still, McConkey swears his group isn't phased by all the distractions darting around them.
"I don't think we've felt it all year. We addressed it on day one of training camp. It was a big offseason thing and then once we got into the season, guys have been super laser-focused on going one game at a time," McConkey said. "We've got a big task at hand here going up to Saskatoon and we've got to be all in on that."
Saturday will mark the first time ever that the Canada West football championship and the CFL west final will both be played in Saskatchewan on the same day.
The broadcast will start on the CKRM 3 feed, found on www.620ckrm.com under the main menu with the pregame show at 1:45 and kickoff slated for 2:00.
