The Gaels 67-0 win over York on the weekend that has been labeled as fauxcoming felt a bit like half a homecoming. There were lots of alumni in the stands, yet it wasn't sold out. The students had their traditional halftime field invasion, but there was no parade around them. The atmosphere on the students side was better than most games, but still not like it has been for previous homecoming years. In the end its just kind of unfortunate that the Gaels got this fauxcoming game against York instead of a game in which the atmosphere may have helped like Western in October.
Dan Brannagan made his return against York after two weeks on the sidelines and he looked like he hadn't missed a second. His first play back was a sixty-two yard completion to Blaise Morrison (which incidentally is one of the best receiver names in the league), albeit against very poor York coverage. Brannagan seemed to have open men down field on every single play, and he found them on more than one occasion leading to 543 yards and five touchdowns in the air over three quarters.
Despite some of the worst pass coverage I have ever seen in the CIS from York yesterday they were very good at holding the run up until the fourth quarter. On the few occasions when Branngan handed off to Jimmy Therrien he was stuffed almost immediately. It wasn't until the fourth quarter when Brannagan came out of the game for Justin Chapdelaine and Therrien came out for first year running back, Ryan Granberg. Granberg ran for sixty-nine yards on only seven attempts and scored a touchdown. He looks very strong and shares more similarities to Mike Giffin than Therrien. He was running right through York tackles when he found space and for a relatively small guy he is very solid.
All in all there wasn't a whole lot to say about this game. It was perfect to help Brannagan's drive to become the all time lead in CIS pass yards after two games on the sidelines, but other than that it didn't tell us too much. The one other "Stat to watch" for the next game would be the fact that the Gaels defense hasn't given up a touchdown in three straight games now.
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5 comments:
What direction is York going in? They've fielded poor teams for quite a while now and I'm concerned that the Administration may just feel that a football program isn't worth their while anymore. Are you aware if there is any hope on the horizon for these bums?
What direction is York going in?
Not up. Other than that I haven't heard too much about the York program, but with several other universities looking to get CIS Football programs it isn't out of the question that they would drop the football program. I mean they have some other very successful athletics programs like their men's soccer team who were national champions last year.
It's flabbergasting that the largest metropolitan region in Canada has the worst university football in Canada.
Ryerson doesn't even have a football team and likely never will in our lifetime.
Toronto's modest improvement last year seems all for naught and York has replaced the Blues as the worst team bar none in the CIS.
Why?
York and Toronto's student population dwarfs the entire AUS conference yet SMU
has always been prominent in CIS football.
Why are these two teams so bad for so long?
Toronto last won the Vanier in 1993, surprisingly recent considering the Varsity Blues have been the CIS equivalent of the '62 Mets for what has seemed like forever.
But U of T used to have a solid program, appearing in the national championship on a couple of occasions.
York has been pretty bad too and for quite some time.
There seems to be no logical reason why.
York has been successful in other sports
yet in football they aren't even respectable.
Why York and Toronto are so poor mystifies me, it really does.
Maybe York can sell their football franchise to UOIT and use the money for other sports.
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