Walter Tychnowicz/CFL.ca
TORONTO — It’s Week 9 of the Canadian Football League’s 2016 season and this week features back-to-back doubleheaders.
It all starts on Friday night when the Montreal Alouettes head to the nation’s capital to face the Ottawa REDBLACKS. Henry Burris looks to keep his team’s winning record intact while Kevin Glenn and his Alouettes hope to turn their season around.
The second half of the Friday Night Football doubleheader features the Calgary Stampeders paying a visit to B.C. for a heavyweight contest with the Lions. Both teams are leaning on their young quarterbacks in Jonathon Jennings and Bo Levi Mitchell to lead them to the top of the West. The Lions and Stamps split their previous matchups, with the Lions winning by two points in Week 1 and the Stamps winning by three points in a thrilling overtime comeback in Week 6.
The action then moves to southern Ontario for the second CFL doubleheader of the week. The first showdown features Mike Reilly and the Edmonton Eskimos heading to Toronto on Saturday afternoon to take on Logan Kilgore and the Argonauts. Last week, the Esks snapped their three-game losing streak and will look to keep the momentum going against a young quarterback in Kilgore who will be making just his third CFL start in the place of Ricky Ray.
Finally, the Tiger-Cats will be returning home to Hamilton to take on the Roughriders. The game marks the first time Zach Collaros will make appearance at Tim Hortons Field since suffering his knee injury last September. After starting the season 1-6, the Riders haven’t hit the panic button just yet and will try to turn things around in the Hammer.
BUY WEEK 9 TICKETS
» Friday, 7:00 p.m. ET: Montreal at Ottawa
» Friday, 10:00 p.m. ET: Calgary at BC
» Saturday, 4:00 p.m. ET: Edmonton at Toronto
» Saturday, 7:00 p.m. ET: Saskatchewan at Hamilton
THIS WEEK IN THE CFL
Unbelievable: In a league where the bar for a great season for a pass catcher has long been set at 1,000 yards, only three superstars have managed 2,000 yard seasons: Calgary’s Allen Pitts, Toronto’s Terry Greer and former Argo and Eskimo Derrell Mitchell. Two players in the CFL are currently on pace in the same year, and on the same team, to reach such a lofty plateau. Edmonton’s Derel Walker has 800 yards and fellow Eskimo Adarius Bowman has 789 yards with seven regular season games down and 11 to go.
A special, special teamer: Special teamer extraordinaire Jason Arakgi of the BC Lions is now only one special teams tackle away from becoming the CFL’s all-time leader. He is currently tied with retired Bomber Wade Miller with 184.
Never better: The three most accurate field goal kickers in CFL history are currently active: Winnipeg’s Justin Medlock (87.1%), Calgary’s Rene Paredes (85.7%) and Edmonton’s Sean Whyte (84.5%). Each are currently on a hot streak: Paredes has connected on 20 FG attempts in a row, Medlock 14 in a row, and White five. If you include Ottawa REDBLACKS kicker Christopher Milo and his FG success ratio of 80.5%, the league has four active kickers among the top six most accurate kickers of all time.
Catching history: Montreal Alouette Nik Lewis moved up to eighth in all-time receiving yards following Week 8’s game versus Edmonton. At 12,410 yards, he has now passed Saskatchewan legend Don Narcisse, who has 12,366. Weston Dressler, with 8.151 career receiving yards, is just 105 yards away from tying Stephen Jones for 35th on the all-time receiving yards list. Hamilton’s Andy Fantuz, with 7,676 receiving yards, and Adarius Bowman, with 7,518, are nearing the milestone of 8,000 career receiving yards – something only 41 players in the long history of the CFL have accomplished.
Streaking Bombers: The Winnipeg Blue Bombers enter their bye on a three-game winning streak following wins over Edmonton, Hamilton and Toronto. Andrew Harris has had a tale of two seasons. In the first five games he averaged 41 rushing yards on 10.6 carries per game. During the current win streak, Harris is averaging just under 100 rushing yards per game and is carrying the ball nearly 20 times a game. Winnipeg was 1-4 when they inserted Matt Nichols as their starting quarterback. He is now 3-0 as a starter this season. In those three games he has averaged 265 passing yards and completed 71.7 per cent of his passes while throwing for five touchdowns and only one interception.
Big comebacks: Argonauts’ receiver Diontae Spencer made his season debut following a back injury and hauled in 146 yards on a CFL season-high 18 targets, 11 of which he caught. Four of those receptions were key second down conversions. Starting his first game since suffering a season ending injury almost a year ago, Tiger-Cat Zach Collaros passed for 331 passing yards and two touchdowns. He helped the Tiger-Cats overcome a 20-point deficit to tie the game at BC Place, before the Lions captured a victory in the game’s final two minutes.
Cross border officiating: Three CFL officials will work NFL pre-season games this weekend as part of the NFL-CFL Officiating Development Program. Dave Foxcroft, who has 249 games of CFL experience, will work the San Francisco versus Denver game on August 20th. Dave Hawkshaw, a veteran of 147 CFL games, will work the New Orleans versus Houston game on August 20th. Justin McInnes will work at Lambeau Field when the Oakland Raiders visit the Green Bay Packers.
» BERG VS. FERG: Is it time for a quarterback change in Montreal?
WEEK 9 GAME NOTES
No interceptions? No problem: Darian Durant has become the first CFL player to reach 300+ attempts and 12 consecutive QB starts without throwing an interception. Durant’s current streak covers 321 consecutive pass attempts over his last 12 starts plus his final 16 attempts on Jul 26/14 (he had his first attempt that day picked off by Toronto’s Thaddeus Gibson).
Sack master: Calgary’s Charleston Hughes had three sacks last week versus Saskatchewan Roughdries and moved up to No. 22 on the all-time CFL sack list with 78. Hughes passed Leroy Blugh in the process and is four sacks away from joining the top-20. He would join Harold Hallman, Angelo Snipes and Bennie Goods with 82 sacks each.
Up, up and away: BC’s Richie Leone punted seven times versus Hamilton and averaged 62.4 yards per kick; that’s the third highest single-game average in CFL history. He trails only former Tiger-Cat punters Nick Setta in 2008 (64.7) and Paul Osbaldiston in 2002 (63.5) for the highest single-game punting average.
Jennings flying: In BC’s last four games they have amassed 164 points (41 points per game average). In those four games Jonathon Jennings has thrown ten touchdown passes. Jennings has eclipsed the 300-yard passing mark in four straight games. He joins Most Outstanding Players Dave Dickenson, Casey Printers and Doug Flutie as the only BC QBs to pass for 300+ yards in four consecutive games.
Penalties going down: Penalties were at their second-lowest point of the season with an average of 17.5 penalties per game during Week 8. Through 32 games, the average amount of penalties per game sits at 19.4. That’s a 23% reduction compared to last year at the same time.
Turnover city: During Week 8 action, games averaged over five turnovers per game, the second most in any week this season. Winnipeg took advantage of the six turnovers they forced versus Toronto which led to 24 of their 34 points following Toronto giveaways. Shaw CFL Top Performer Kevin Fogg was responsible for three of the turnovers (two interceptions and a fumble recovery). Winnipeg is +12 in the turnover ratio – that’s their highest ratio in 12 years.
Dickenson’s going streaking: Stampeders head coach Dave Dickenson is riding a six-game unbeaten streak as a first-year head coach (5-0-1).
REDBLACKS seeing RED: Ottawa is number one in red zone touchdown percentage (79%). However, they are also 9th in getting into the red zone with only 14 trips this season.
Welcome to my house: Home teams have begun to heat up. They have won nine of the last 15 games.
Coaches challenges low: The last two weeks have matched a season low of just seven coaches’ challenges. The league is now averaging 2.4 per game.
