For those interested in following the recruitment battle in the RSEQ (and Bishops), here are two resources (not created by me, but I am very grateful for them).

Recruitment
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/126ILGrSC28sfe5Fn51qQaJBqLHERqWWTCTORj8sAFik/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Recruitment and roster prediction

https://onedrive.live.com/:x:/g/personal/E4B9BBE9BEEB9280/EYCS677pu7kggORvDgAAAAABNvQ90lz1OU37ecW3ZS_MhA?resid=E4B9BBE9BEEB9280!3695&ithint=file%2Cxlsx&e=J0avdU&migratedtospo=true&redeem=aHR0cHM6Ly8xZHJ2Lm1zL3gvYy9lNGI5YmJlOWJlZWI5MjgwL0VZQ1M2NzdwdTdrZ2dPUnZEZ0FBQUFBQk52UTkwbHoxT1UzN2VjVzNaU19NaEE_ZT1KMGF2ZFU

Rouge et Or | 2024 Coupe Vanier Highlights

My Apologies - I know I should have posted this before the Vanier, not afterwards, but I was wondering if some of my old comrades from the .org board - Marton, Bizz, - were at the Vanier on Saturday? I have a feeling I missed a chance to meet up (for all I know, I was sitting near one of you and would never know it...)

If you did go, I hope you enjoyed Kingston and Richardson Stadium

Not a great start for Laurier- looks like they are a little too fired up. Stupid unsportsmanlike penalty ended their first drive. Laval looking all business here. D getting to the QB and the offense is moving the ball.

Well obviously I'm an OUA stan so I'm picking Laurier to win. That offense hasn't been stopped by anyone this year, and I don't see Laval being the ones to do it after giving up 350+ yards passing to Regina last week. I also didn't see in that game an offense in Laval that had the creativity to keep up with Laurier - just a lot of short passes to Roy and the occasional deep shot to Coull. That script played out in game after game for Laurier this year - team with a good o-line and stout running attack, Laurier puts up a couple of early scores, and the team is forced into a passing shootout they aren't equipped to complete at.

Weather looks like it will be pretty decent which should help Laurier as well, and then add to that the semi-home nature of the game being played in Ontario.

I think Laurier wins pretty handily; I'll say 42-17.

Is it possible to tailgate in any parking at Richardson ? If so, give a few more details please, beer allowed, grill allowed, etc...

Thanks

Not a good start for the broadcast, as they're having microphone issues pre-game and flipping between the commentary and the stadium feed.

Watching Bishops vs Laurier in the Utek bowl. The announcing is atrocious. And it sounds a bit like the audio is delayed from the video.

I don’t see why they can’t implement an 8 team playoff in the CIS. I think you would have the 4 conference champions as auto bids and then 4 at large bids. I think you would get rid of conference playoffs and have the top two teams of each conference play for the championship.

IIRC, the semifinals have been blowouts in recent years and I feel like there are usually 2-3 teams per conference (outside of the AUS), that could compete each year. What do you guys think?

So, a pretty clear narrative as I've alluded to before - Laurier will light up Bishops, and Laval will systematically break down Regina, and its Ontario vs Quebec in the final. In the spirit of clickbait sportswriting, let's talk about 3 reasons why each game might not go that way.

Laurier vs Bishops - how can Bishops win?

Reason 1: Elgersma gunslinging. For all the great things he does, Elgersma had 9 interceptions in the regular season this year as well as 2 fumbles. Bishops wasn't a turnover forcing machine this year with 9 INT and 7 FF, but they can get the ball if you want to be careless with it.

Reason 2: Pressure on the QB. Bishops racked up 27 QB sacks this year, more than any team in the OUA. Now, Elgersma is not an easy dude to sack and the stats bear that out, but the Gaiters have six different players with at least 3 sacks; this isn't something where you have to just scheme to stop one guy. Further, one of the Laurier all OUA guys on the o-line went down against Western

Reason 3: Laurier's lack of an explosive defense; in contrast to the above, Laurier had only 15 sacks this year and 9 forced turnovers. They were middle of the pack in yards per game against, and only held one opponent under 20 points on the year (to be fair while never giving up more than 28). It's a bend don't break defense that you can move the ball on somewhat, but gets real stingy in the red zone. Unfortunately, Bishops was 22/35 in TD% in the redzone this year so they'll need to have a "good red zone" day to put some real pressure on.

Why it actually won't matter: Laurier's offense and special teams are just too good. Elgersma might make a mistake here or there, but what you get in return is an almost automatic 30 points (they weren't held under that total in the regular season even once), and Laurier's return game is so dynamic that they are just seemingly always in good field position. Bishops won't be able to keep up even if they make a few plays.

Laval vs Regina - how can Regina win

Reason 1: The home crowd. The one loss Laval has this year did come on the road against Montreal, and by all accounts they were propelled to victory by the home crowd in the Dunsmore. Quebec to Saskatchewan is a pretty big travel ask so you can expect the stadium to be almost exclusively for Regina. They might not have drawn well this year but for this game (and with the Roughriders out) I could see the province coming together and filling their beautiful stadium with watermelon heads and noise. That should be worth a few points.

Reason 2: Regina wasn't as bad as they seem and they have momentum. It's easy to see them as a team that finished 3-5 and had to scrape their way here. A closer look shows that of their 5 losses, 3 were by a field goal or less and a few bounces could have seen them with a much better record. Winning two games on the road to get out of CanWest is no joke either.

Reason 3: Is Laval's turnover luck due to run out? They only threw one interception all year, and recovered 6 of their 10 fumbles. Sometimes a team like that seems to really control things and then it all collapses (just see last night with the Lions where Goff threw 5 picks seemingly out of nowhere). You can argue it isn't luck and maybe it isn't, but with some snow in the forecast for Satuday in Regina, different conditions might make things a little more random.

Why it actually won't matter: I don't think Regina can score against Laval. Laval had the #1 defense in the country, and Regina was 20th in the country in points. If Laval can get to 20 points, I think they have this one in the bag, and they're too good not to do that. TBH I had to reach a bit to come up with three reasons.

Where the hell are the USports highlights? Do they seriously not exist anywhere on YouTube?!

Beautiful fall day for football in Saskatoon results in a standing room only crowd.

Lots of offence in the first quarter, but the Rams lose 2 fumbles. 7-0 Huskies after 1 quarter.

Boy o boy Western has no answers for Laurier's offense and can't get anything going vs the defense.

Gonna be a long game for them if they can't get their shit together.

I wasn’t going to get tickets to the Yates cup in waterloo because I was going to be working, but I just learned this evening I’ll be free. Unfortunately all tickets are all sold out. Anyone have any leads/ideas on how to buy 2-3 tickets? Price isn’t an issue

Anyone would like to share their predictions for this weekend? I'll start:

Dunsmore Cup #1 Montréal @ #3 Laval: Laval by 4

Hard to pick a winner. Head to head, both teams won at home by only 1 point. Overall, more points scored for the Carabins and less points allowed by the Rouge et Or (which ultimately was the tie breaker for 1st place in the conference). Montréal is the older, more experienced team, but also has more injuries. I believe that, at the end of the day, home-field advantage will make the difference. Also, after 2 games that had more offense than what we are used to between those 2 rivals, I think we will go back to a lower score like we have seen in the past. 18-14 type game

Yates Cup #4 Western @ #2 Laurier: Western by 6

It should be an interesting one, but I believe that Western's power game will give them the edge at this time of year. They will be wanting to avenge their previous L and are well-equipped to do so.

Hardy Trophy Regina @ #10 Saskatchewan: Regina by 3

It's probably the conference I know the least about. However, one thing I know is that it is by far the one with the most parity, so I think the 3-5 Rams (who seem to have a very solid defense) could pull off another upset this week.

Jewett Trophy St. Mary's @ #6 Bishop's: Bishop's by 14

The Huskies gave good battles to the Gaiters this year, but I believe this is the 8-0 Gaiters' year to get out of the conference. They are most likely the AUS' best shot at giving a decent fight to the other winners (eventhough I think they will still get destroyed the following week)

Coaches won't say it, but as a fan, I can.

This is, by far, THE game of the year in USports football. In fact. the RSEQ representative will go to Kingston only to pick up the trophy, cause it will be awarded next week-end in Québec City.

You read it here first; now let see your arguments against the obvious.

SMU vs Bishops

Bishop's has beaten SMU twice already this year albeit by relatively smaller margins (18-11 and 19-14), and have just found a way to win all year. That said, SMU lost both games this year to StFX before taking them out in the semis so maybe they prove for the second time it's hard to beat a team 3 times in one year.

Western vs Laurier

The rematch all Ontario has been waiting for; Laurier wants to avenge last year's Yates Cup, while Western wants to show that this regular season was just a blip. Maybe more than any other game, this will depend on the weather; good weather lets the Laurier passing attack continue to run wild, but crappy weather might favor Western's power game. Current forecast is 12 degrees and clear.

Regina vs Saskatchewan

Carnage in CanWest as the top two seeks both lose, leaving the province of Saskatchewan to determine their winner. Saskatchewan and Regina split their two games this year, both of which were decided by 5 points or less. Pretty much a toss up here, and in reality, whoever wins is probably facing a very daunting task by playing the winner of...

Laval vs Montreal

Same as CanWest, the two teams split their series, with a combined score of 54-54. Is there anything to pick between the two?

The narrative feels like its whoever comes out of Ontario vs whoever comes out of Quebec for the Vanier this year, and for all the fun we have trying to pick upsets, it's hard to pick against that exact scenario playing out.

Anyone watching on oua.tv? No sound? Edit: sound now working.

Also, player on Queen's got his ankle snapped in half on punt return play. Foot was left dangling. Very ugly injury. Didn't catch who it was though. Hoping it wasn't St. Arnault.

Would be a big upset

Concordia over Laval
Acadia over Bishops
McGill over Montreal
Regina over Manitoba
Queens over Laurier

Would be surprising

Guelph over Western
Saskatchewan over UBC

Anything would be possible

StFX vs SMU

Maybe I'm overrating Guelph, but I think they could beat Western if they make it a shootout. Guelph's got enough offense, and who knows how Western reacts if it's close when they haven't played a close game all year.

At the game. Skeltons not playing. Windsors winning 13-9.

Any takers?

I’m not sure if Windsor is the underdog or not- they finished ahead of queens but queens is ranked higher.

Either way, I’m sticking to my guns and predicting a Windsor win lol

Two, count ‘em, Two, ties in the top 4 rankings. I think that all 4 of these teams are pretty evenly matched and one could argue that there’s not much to say that one team is much better or much worse than the other 3 teams right now.

I wonder how long it’s been since there have been 2 AUS teams in the Top 10 at this time of year? Though I really question the ranking of both Bishop’s and St. FX. The inclusion on FX at #10 is solely because of their ELO ranking.

Speaking of ELO, the system still seems to really hate Manitoba. The Bisons at 6-1 sit behinds two 4-3 teams in the ELO rankings.

For some reason, Reddit isn’t letting me post the link to the full standings, but I’m sure you can track it down, or I may come back and post it later.

Let's look at the extremely messy Canada West going into the final week.

1 seed: Will be decided by the Manitoba-UBC game.

• If Manitoba wins, they are the number 1 seed.
• If Manitoba loses by 22 points or less, they are the number 1 seed (H2H record would be 1-1, but Manitoba would have the tiebreak in point differential H2H by beating UBC by 23 earlier in the year)
• If Manitoba loses by exactly 23 points, UBC would be the number 1 seed (H2H record would be 1-1, point differential in H2H games would be even, but UBC would win based on point differential in league games after including the +23 and -23 from the last game)
• If Manitoba loses by 23 points or more, UBC is the number 1 seed (H2H record would be 1-1, but UBC would have the tiebreak in point differential H2H)

2 seed: will be whoever of the above two teams is not the 1 seed. If UBC loses and Saskatchewan wins, they both end up at 5-3, but UBC would win the tiebreak based on their H2H victory over Saskatchewan.

3 seed: will be Saskatchewan; no one below them can catch them, and the only team above them they can catch is UBC who they lose the tiebreak to as described above.

4. seed: Three teams for one spot. Let's talk the simple options first:

• Alberta wins, Calgary loses, Regina loses - Alberta is the only team to get to 3-5. They get the #4 seed.
• Alberta loses, Calgary loses, Regina wins - Regina is the only team to get to 3-5. They get the #4 seed.

Now the slightly more complicated:

• Alberta wins, Calgary wins, Regina loses. Alberta and Calgary are 3-5. Calgary beat Alberta H2H, so Calgary gets the final playoff spot.
• Alberta loses, Calgary wins, Regina wins. Calgary and Regina are 3-5. Calgary and Regina were 1-1 in H2H this year. Second tiebreak is point differential in H2H games: Calgary lost to Regina by 8, then beat Regina by 3, meaning Regina has a +5 point differential in the H2H games, and would win the tiebreak. As a result, Regina would get the final playoff spot. So, despite currently being in last, the only team that actually has a "win and you're in" guarantee is Regina.

Source of tiebreak rules: https://canadawest.org/documents/playingregs/2024-25/Football_2024-25_-September_12-_2024-_FINAL.pdf