Over the past five seasons the Calgary Dinos have been the Tyrannosaurus rex of the Canada West conference, ruling the land, winning a record five straight Hardy Cups. The Dinos have been the king carnivores of Can West this year as well, making easy prey out of the Saint Mary’s Huskies, Manitoba Bisons, B.C. Thunderbirds, Regina Rams and Alberta Golden Bears, and marking the path to a sixth consecutive Hardy.
Calgary no doubt hopes that path leads to even more hardware. To get there, though, they’ll need to buck a trend. Recent history shows that when you take the Dinos out of their natural habitat, they turn into more of a scared lizard than a tyrant ruler.
Since claiming their first CWUAA championship in 2008, the Dinos have played seven out-of-conference games in either the Mitchell or Uteck Bowls and the Vanier Cup. Calgary’s record in those games is 2-5, and both wins have come against teams from the Atlantic, a conference many CIS pundits agree has been the worst in the country.
It’s the teams from Ontario and Quebec that have stopped the Dinos in their tracks in each of the past five seasons and the games haven’t been all that close—Calgary has been outscored 207–59 in those games.
Two issues jump out when assessing why the Dinos struggle against the RSEQ and OUA squads. Let’s start by saying it has nothing to do with a major talent gap between the conferences. Need proof? Look no further than the 2013 CFL Draft selections by CIS conference: OUA (15), Canada West (14), Quebec (nine), and Atlantic (six). Not to mention five of the players picked out of the west were from Calgary.
The first thing working against the Dinos is they’ve been unable to answer or stop scoring runs. In the 2008 Uteck Bowl, Laval led 52–0 before Calgary got on the board. Laval put up 17 straight to open the 2010 Vanier and the Dinos could never catch up. Calgary actually led 10-3 in the 2011 Mitchell Bowl until Laval hit for 38 points in a row to win going away 41–10. And in their most recent loss at the national level, McMaster rolled off 37 consecutive points on the way to a 45–6 victory over Calgary.
And in the one game where the Dinos managed to flip the script—going up 25–7 on Queen’s at the half of the 2009 Vanier—they ended up surrendering 26 straight points in an eventual 33–31 loss. So this team needs to find a way to break up the lengthy scoring runs, whether at the beginning or the end of big games.
The other factor hindering Calgary’s chances is that their most talented players simply haven’t shown up in the team’s biggest games. As Sportsnet’s CIS football play-by-play man Tim Micallef would say, “special players make special plays on special days.”
The Dinos’ special players have been nowhere near spectacular in their five season-ending defeats.
Maybe it’s been a case of bad luck—a bunch of bad performances grouped together at the wrong time. But talented alumni such as Matt Walter, Anthony Woodson, Steven Lumbala, Anthony Parker, Nathan Coehoorn and two-time Hec Crighton winner Erik Glavic—all were drafted into the CFL except for Glavic—simply weren’t able to make enough plays to allow the Dinos to hoist a Vanier Cup during their dominant run in Canada West.
The string of poor playoff performances haunts members of the current squad as well. Quarterback Eric Dzwilewski, the reigning Canada West Player of the Year who suffered a broken right foot in the opening game of the season, is a combined 19 of 45 for 212 yards and no touchdowns in two bowl-game starts, both losses. Dzwilewski might not return to the field in 2013, but third-year pivot Andrew Buckley has been impressive in his place, throwing for 1,352 yards with a 9-3 TD-INT ratio in four starts—all Dino victories.
Of course, it remains to be seen what Buckley can do at the national level. The loss of their starting QB had to be a devastating mental hit for the entire Calgary team, but working through it—and thriving in spite of it—may help make them stronger come CIS playoff time.
Also helping this team’s chances is the fact that a plethora of playmakers are emerging around the quarterback position. Sophomore back Mercer Timmis sits second among CIS rushing leaders with 709 yards in five outings, and he leads the country with 13 touchdowns—no other player has more than seven. In the passing game, Chris Dobko, Brett Blaszko and Rashaun Simonise have formed a formidable and diverse receiving trio. Calgary is ranked second in the nation, scoring 47 points per game.
It almost goes without saying this team is young and talented. But regular-season plaudits have never been a problem for this generation’s Dinos teams, and the question remains: can they put up big point totals when they leave the Canada West conference?
Reading through all the poor stat lines from the special Calgary players in the past, it’s clear the current crop of Dinos’ stars need to reverse the trend, be visible and shine brightest when the championship trophies are on the line. If they can’t, the Dinos’ Vanier Cup aspirations will become extinct again in 2013.