Johany Jutras/CFL
CFL.ca Staff
MONTREAL — The Montreal Alouettes made shockwaves on Friday night, announcing that General Manager Jim Popp will step onto the sidelines and take control after the firing of Head Coach Tom Higgins.
While the move is sudden, Jim Popp’s explanation in the aftermath to TSN was perfectly clear: The Montreal Alouettes simply need to be better.
“It’s a situation that (Owner Bob Wetenhall) has been looking at and evaluating for two seasons and obviously I’m involved in the discussions,” Popp told TSN in an exclusive interview. “We just feel like we should have a better record or be a little further ahead than where we are right now.”
Higgins departs with a 12-14 record in 26 games as a head coach during his time with Montreal, his team making the playoffs a season ago and eventually falling to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the Eastern Final. This season the Alouettes started 3-5, recently coming off a win on the West Coast over the BC Lions.
But with a dominant defence and the pending development of a 23-year-old rookie quarterback in Rakeem Cato, Popp said he expects more.
“At the end of the day we need to find a way to win more football games and be one of the elite teams,” Popp lamented. “We feel we should be more of a 6-2 team and not a 3-5 team.”
“We just feel like we want to go in a different direction at the moment.”
The full interview can be watched on TSN.ca.
On Saturday, Popp and the Alouettes announced some adjustments to the coaching staff. The CFL’s all-time leading passer Anthony Calvillo is moving from Wide Receivers coach to Quarterbacks Coach, where he’ll work closer with the young pivot Cato. He’ll now work from the sidelines, where he coached from on Friday night, after coaching the first seven games of the season from the press box.
André Bolduc takes over as the wide receivers coach, the team also announced.
