REGINA — Throughout the U Sports season, the University of Saskatchewan Huskies grew a reputation on their defence: don’t go into a game against the dogs and not expect to come out without a few bumps and bruises.
That’s a product of a team that has had the goal of being as hard-hitting and physical as possible right from their first game of the season, and it’s a role that Regina native and fourth-year defensive lineman Charlie Parks has embraced. It has also resulted in a lot of winning football, to the point that the 10-1 Huskies will be taking the field in the Vanier Cup against the Montreal Carabins on Saturday afternoon.
“Right at the start of our fall camp, we met as a defence upstairs at our clubhouse and we were like, 'What do we want to be our things, what do we want to be known for?’ We wanted to be known for being physical, being violent and having fun, that was our top three,” Parks told Dave Thomas.
“Those top three have been put on the whiteboard at the start of every week. For people to be noticing that's our thing is exactly what we want. We want to be known as the most physical unit, the most violent unit that looks like they're having fun all the time.”
Of course, that’s not an easy brand of football to play, but when you’re committed to the cause, you get the job done.
“Definitely not easy,” Parks said. “We’ve got plenty of battle scars from doing it, but it gets easier as you put it on tape in a way. It feels like when people know you as the most physical unit, it gets easier to be that most physical unit because that's who you are.”
The fact Parks is more than willing to put his body on the line to reach that goal might come as a surprise to some given how things went for him early in his Huskies career. A serious back injury in his second year with Saskatchewan saw him play through the 2023 season at less than 100 percent, and before the 2024 campaign kicked off, he opted to have surgery. That saw Parks play only four games last season, but the end result was worth it — he’s taken the field in all 11 games this year, recording 29 tackles while also adding 6.5 sacks.
Parks said the whole injury and recovery process helped him with the nicks and bruises he went through this season and knowing when and how to deal with them.
“I’ve discovered that [the body] is a lot more resilient than you think, but you also have to listen to it and make sure it’s in the best condition possible,” Parks said, adding that the mental part of recovery is also a major part of the process.
“That's something that I've really started focusing on now that I didn't focus on earlier in my playing career. Now it's one of my biggest advantages, my mental game and how dialed in it is.”
There’s little question Parks and his teammates will want to be as focused as possible when they hit the field against the Carabins. As is usually the case in the Vanier Cup, the two teams are complete unknowns to one another, with only game tape to go off when it comes to finding tendencies and trends. But there is one thing that Parks thinks is to their advantage — the RSEQ and Canada West tend to play similar brands of football, and the Huskies have had more than their share of success against that style of the game.
“The way that their defences play, they play physical, they play tough, they play downhill,” Parks explained. “It's easier to see yourself in that spot watching RSEQ film than it is watching OUA film. I think we're definitely dialed in and pretty well prepared.”
As has been the mantra for both the Roughriders heading in the Grey Cup last week and Parks’ Huskies teammates, a major key to success will be playing within themselves and not trying to do too much, a task that can be harder than it sounds.
“You can trust that everybody else is feeling the same thing,” Parks said. “It goes without saying that you don't make the game bigger than it is. We're not here because of lucky bounces, we're not here because somebody else crapped the bed when they were playing us. We're here because we earned it and we're here because we deserve it. So knowing that and believing in that, knowing everybody else believes in that helps you keep it a game, that it’s just another game we’re playing.”
And so, leading into kick-off at Mosaic Stadium, the plan remains the same.
“It's the three goals that we put on the board at the start of the year,” Park said. “We got to be physical, we got to be violent, we got to have fun because you don't win games when you're down on each other, you don't win games when you're getting angry, you don't win games when you're getting smacked around. We’ve got to go out there and be what we've been all year. We have to be the most physical team on the field and we have to have the most fun on the field.”
The Vanier Cup kicks off from Mosaic Stadium in Regina on Saturday at 1 p.m.
