Saskatchewan Huskies' running back Ryker Frank shared what it means to play in the Vanier Cup in his hometown of Regina.
"It's a very cool — full circle moment for me," Frank explained on the SportsCage. "I grew up playing football there, so being able to come back, play my last university football game there, with all the familiar faces in the crowd, it's going to be a good feeling."
The Huskies defeated Queen's University in the Mitchell Bowl 22-11 as Frank ran 22 times for 135 yards to advance to the Canadian university football championship game.
"It's always a little weird playing against out-of-conference teams because they do different stuff," Frank said. "Their level of physicality, things like that. We definitely took the first quarter to sort of figure out what they were all about, how hard they hit. Then from there, executing the game plan we had in, and the game plan we've had in all season to adjust to beat them."
Frank will play in his third Vanier Cup on Saturday; the other two appearances, he lost. His first U Sport title game was in 2021 when Saskatchewan lost to Western University 27-21. The Huskies returned to the Vanier Cup the following year in 2022 and were defeated by the Laval Rouge et Or 30-24.
"The fact that we've been here before and I've been here before, it helps settle things down," Frank said. "Leading up to it, there's a chaotic week, there's press conferences, there's banquets, there's all this noise — I think having gone through that before allows you to sort of quiet down the week, meet the moment and focus on playing some football. It's another opportunity to go 1-0 in the week."
The five-foot-ten 198-pound running back has started 11 games for the Huskies in 2025. He's rushed 171 times for 1,148 yards with three touchdowns plus 40 receptions for 387 yards and three majors.
Saskatchewan has more motivation to do win the Vanier Cup because after starting quarterback Anton Amundrud was diagnosed with a combination of T-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH).
"I always like to go see him before and after games. Before games, he'll give me a quote or something to hype me up, and then he always breaks down the games for me, letting me know what we should do differently next week. You can't really take the football out of that guy," Frank explained. "He's fighting hard and we're fighting hard for him on the field, too. A huge amount of love and support for that guy."
The Vanier Cup between the Saskatchewan Huskies and the Montreal Carabins goes on Saturday at Mosaic Stadium with kickoff at 1 p.m.
