Thursday Night Football hits Regina with a Canada West showdown in the offing.
The 2-3 University of Regina Rams, fresh off a bye week, try to snap their three game losing skid in their final Mosaic Stadium appearance of the season against the 1-4 Alberta Golden Bears.
The Ram passing game has struggled at times this season, especially in their most recent game, a 14-13 road loss to the Calgary Dinos.
Rams quarterback Owen Sieben is confident fans will see a better performance tonight.
"There's definitely a lot of fire this week to be better," Sieben said. "We know we didn't have our best stuff last time so we definitely have that sense of urgency to be better and we will be this week."
It's the Rams first Thursday Night Football game in 10 years and receiver Nic Sirleaf likes playing under the prime time lights of what is arguably the best football stadium in Canada.
"Mosaic is a wonderful field to play at," Sirleaf said. "It gives you that pro atmosphere that everybody wants to feel. I don't think I've played a Thursday night game since high school, so it's pretty awesome."
Rams head coach Mark McConkey expects his quarterback, receivers and play-calling to be better tonight than it was against Calgary. He has full confidence in his starting quarterback.
"His numbers aren't great but we've had a lot of drops too. I think we had eight drops in the last game so if you minus those drops, he's looking a lot better," McConkey said. "He's throwing a pretty good football. He's just made some errors when he's left the pocket."
"We've got the best running game in Canada West. We've got a good defence and when it's your time to throw, just stay in the pocket."
Coach Mark also pointed out the last game at Mosaic was Sieben's best passing performance of the season.
It's a critical matchup for the Rams who are not into must-win territory yet but are facing a young Alberta squad who has the worst record in the conference and have been getting blown in most of their games.
A loss to the Golden Bears wouldn't finish the Rams mathematically but would surely feel like a devastating blow for a team with some tough matches left on the schedule including one against second-place UBC and another on the road at Manitoba to face a team who has only lost one regular season game at home since 2023.
The Rams will have to go it without reigning Canada West leading rusher Marshall Erichsen again who suffered an MCL injury in the Calgary loss and is week-to-week. They did get some good news this week with the return of speedy receiver/kick returner Kaleb Senz.
Meanwhile, Alberta started the year winless in their first three games, getting blown out in all three of those matches, outscored by a margin of 147-30, before an injury to starting quarterback Christian Veilleux brought senior and backup Golden Bears quarterback Eli Hetlinger off the bench.
Since then, Alberta has beaten Calgary and lost to Manitoba in a game they scored only 3 points but moved the football in wet, slippery conditions and didn't get blown out like they had earlier in the season.
U-of-R's football coach has watched the mobile Hetlinger throughout his Canada West career and knows all about the threats Hetlinger poses to the Ram defence.
"He's really good. I've said that since his first year when he played. He makes a lot of plays with his feet. He's good at throwing on the run. He extends plays," McConkey said. "We're going to have our hands full on defence and make sure we know where he is."
Alberta head coach Stevenson Bone told the media Wednesday the plan was to start Hetlinger but has not ruled out a return for Veilleux at quarterback for this game either.
A crisp autumn evening appears to be in store for Regina. Temperatures are forecast to hover around +2 degrees celsius at kickoff and throughout the game with very little wind. Slippery field conditions could be a factor.
Tonight's game will be broadcast live on 620 CKRM radio and www.620ckrm.com with the pregame show at 6:45 and kickoff at 7:00.
