By Stampeders.com Staff
Here’s a closer look at the Stampeders’ 26-25 victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at McMahon Stadium on Saturday.
Another close one
The Stamps are finding a way to pull out close games so far in 2015 as their three victories, all on home field, have come by a combined margin of seven points. Besides Saturday’s one-point decision over the Bombers, the Red and White have defeated Hamilton by one point and Toronto by five.
There was a similar situation in the early going of the 2011 season as the Stamps won three times in a four-game stretch with the victories also coming by a combined margin of seven points — a 34-32 decision over BC, a 21-20 squeaker against Winnipeg and a 22-18 win over Saskatchewan.
White-knuckle finishes have been the norm across the league so far this season as 10 of the 16 games played to date have been decided by five or fewer points.
First to three
The Stampeders are the first CFL team to record a third victory this season and they lead BC and Edmonton (both 2-1) and Winnipeg (2-2) by a game in the West Division standings.
The Stamps previously started 3-1 under John Hufnagel in 2008, 2010 and 2013 and they were 4-0 after four games in 2014.
Laying it on the (O-)line
Chris Schultz is based in Ontario, where he works as one of panelists on the CFL on TSN out of the network’s Toronto studio.
That means he didn’t see the Calgary Stampeders practise this past week and he certainly wasn’t privy to anything that happened in the Stamps’ offensive line meetings.
But Schultz played a dozen professional seasons as an offensive lineman in the CFL and NFL and might have above-average insight into the Stamps’ play in the past two games despite a string of injuries that necessitated some shuffling among the big men up front.
“I was amazed the Calgary Stampeders won one game, much less two, considering the absence of two offensive tackles and three players that were playing their first CFL game as starters,” Schultz said during TSN’s post-game panel discussion.
Garry Williams was making his CFL debut at left tackle and right guard Brad Erdos made his first pro start.
When Pierre Lavertu went down with a stinger early in the game, Karl Lavoie made his pro debut and then when Lavoie got hurt, Lavertu gutted it out and returned to his position.
When Schultz sees the Stamps survive and even prosper under such trying conditions, he thinks about the man in charge of the Calgary offensive line — coach Pat DelMonaco.
“He did a magnificent job of keeping his players confident,” said Schultz. “I saw very few penalties, very few missed assignments. The play-calling was good but when it came to the physical side of the sport, Pat DelMonaco had his guys ready to go. Pat DelMonaco, you did a great job getting some inexperienced players ready to play.”
Cornish shoots up rushing charts
One piece of evidence that the patched-up Calgary offensive line was doing a nifty job on Saturday is that running back Jon Cornish registered his first 100-yard game of the season. He ran for 120 yards, to be exact, including 66 during a critical 107-yard in the third quarter that set up a Drew Tate touchdown.
Cornish had faced criticism for a slow start to the season in terms of his production but Saturday’s performance gives him 305 rushing yards for the season, a figure that leaves him a single yard back of league leader Jerome Messam.
Cornish had made a habit of picking up the pace as the season rolls along. In 2012, the year he won his first rushing title, he had just 199 yards after five games but still finished with 1,457 yards.
A year ago, he had just 141 yards heading into the Labour Day Classic as an injury forced him to miss all but three games but five 100-yard efforts in the second half propelled him to a third consecutive rushing crown.
In case you missed it . . .
Here is more coverage from Saturday’s game
>> Game story
>> Stamps TV: Highlights
>> Stamps TV: Game balls
>> Berger king
>> Stamps TV: Recap
>> Photo gallery
>> Thibault’s first touchown
>> Game stats
>> Stamps TV: Huff’s post-game comments
>> Stamps TV: Locker-room reaction
>> Durant blog
