Menu
@
September 30, 2017

About Last Night…

Photo by Mark Shannon

Here’s a closer look at the Stamps’ 59-11 romp over the Montreal Alouettes at McMahon Stadium on Friday:

Hang 10

For the fifth time in franchise history, the Stamps have a 10-game regular-season winning streak.

Calgary holds the CFL record of 22 straight wins – set in 1948 and 1949 – and had a 14-game winning streak a season ago.

The Red and White also won their final game of 1992 before starting the 1993 season with a 10-game winning streak and there was also a 10-game winning streak spread over the 1994 and 1995 campaigns.

Five of the 12 double-digit winning streaks in CFL history belong to the Stamps as well as four of the nine runs of 10 wins or more within the same season.

Dandy dozen

The Stampeders are the first team in CFL history to record at least 12 wins in six consecutive seasons.

With 12, 14, 15, 14, and 15 wins from 2012-16, Calgary had been tied with the 1992-96 Stamps, the 1996-2000 Alouettes and the 1957-61 Blue Bombers with five consecutive seasons with a dozen or more wins but now they stand alone.

It’s the eighth time in 10 years of the John Hufnagel era the Stamps have won at least 12 games.

Home is where the wins are

The Stamps have put 17 consecutive regular-season home games in the win column, tied for the third-longest run of home success in CFL history.

Only the 1992-95 Stamps, who won 27 in a row at McMahon, and the 1953-56 Alouettes, who had 20 straight victories in their original tenancy at Percival Molson Stadium, have had longer runs of success on home turf.

Hat trick for Williams

It was a spectacular first CFL start for tailback Terry Williams.

Coming off the practice roster to replace the ailing Jerome Messam, Williams shredded the Alouettes defence for 156 yards and three touchdowns.

It was the second time this season a Stamps running back rushed for three majors in a single game as Messam did it in Week 6 against Hamilton.

Prior to this season, no Stamp had scored exactly three rushing touchdowns in a game since Joffrey Reynolds in 2009. Jon Cornish had a four-touchdown game in 2013.

The rushing yardage was the highest by a Calgary player since Cornish had a 160-yard game against Winnipeg in 2014.

Happy returns

When Roy Finch twisted an ankle on Friday, the Stamps remained in good shape with their punt-return game.

That’s because Tunde Adeleke was in uniform and the rookie from Carleton brought back a Boris Bede boot 51 yards for his second punt-return major of the season.

Prior to this season, only four Calgary players had recorded multiple punt-return TDs in the same season – Derrick Crawford with three in 1990 and two each by Pee Wee Smith in 1991, Marvin Coleman in 1999 and Wane McGarity in 2003.

This year, two players have done it as Finch has three scores and Adeleke two.

Before going out with the injury, Finch increased his season total of punt-return yards to 1,160, the fifth-best season total in CFL history.

Finch needs just 77 more yards to climb to second place all time and, if healthy by the time the Stamps conclude their bye week, he has a chance at Henry (Gizmo) Williams’ record of 1,440 yards.

Lights out

Due to the post-game fireworks display, the game-day theme for Friday was “Light up the Night.”

The Stamps warmed up by lighting up the scoreboard during the game, too.

The 59 points are the fourth-highest total in Stamps history, surpassed only by a pair of 62-point performances in the 1990s and a 60-point output earlier this season against Hamilton.

Calgary has outscored the visitors 278-99 in posting a 7-0 record at McMahon Stadium in 2017.

On the other side of the ball . . .

When the Stamps lost 30-23 in Montreal in Week 4, it was the third time in the first four games Calgary surrendered 30 or more points. Well the defence apparently decided that wasn’t acceptable because it hasn’t happened even once in the 10 games since.

In fact, only twice have the Stamps given up as many as 20 points during their 10-game winning streak. By contrast, the opposition has scored less than 14 points six times including 10 or less on four occasions.

For the season, the Stamps have surrendered a league-low 242 points and their points for-points against differential of plus-221 is well ahead of the second-best team in that category – the Blue Bombers at plus-56.

El Matador maintains hot streak

Stamps kicker Rene Paredes went five-for-five in field goals for a second consecutive game and is now perfect on 18 consecutive attempts. Five of the field goals during the streak have been from 40 yards out or longer including a pair on Friday.

Paredes has four games with five field goals this season and 15 in his career. He has a league-best 44 field goals for the season and a 91.7-per cent success rate.

Singleton hits 100

Middle linebacker Alex Singleton picked up eight more defensive tackles on Friday and now has a league-leading 102 tackles for the season.

As listed by the CFL, George White holds the Stampeders franchise record with 116. In addition, Doug (Tank) Landry had 122 total tackles in 1989 although the records don’t show how many of those takedowns were on defence and how many came on special teams and so the mark is not officially recognized.

Singleton is just the third Canadian to hit triple digits in tackles in a season. Toronto’s Kevin Eiben did it twice (2005 and 2010) while Winnipeg’s Henoc Muamba accomplished the feat in 2013.

Sack race

The Stamps got to the quarterback on three occasions Friday as they increased their league-leading total of sacks to 41.

Ja’Gared Davis was one of the players to get a sack and he joins teammates Micah Johnson and Charleston Hughes in a group of five CFL players who share the league lead heading into Saturday’s action with eight bagged quarterbacks apiece.

With the Stamps allowing a league-low 16 sacks this season, Calgary has a plus-25 differential in that category.