VANCOUVER – The No. 7 UBC Thunderbirds football team will try to clinch home-field advantage for the first round of the Canada West playoffs, when its hosts the No. 1-ranked Calgary Dinos on Saturday afternoon in the final game of the 2011 regular season.
Kickoff at Thunderbird Stadium is scheduled for 2:07 p.m. and the game will be broadcast live on Shaw TV and CiTR 101.9 FM.
UBC (5-2) is trying to clinch second place in the Canada West football standings so it can host a playoff game for the first time since 1999. That can happen with either a UBC win or Saskatchewan loss to winless Alberta.
Thunderbirds' quarterback
Billy Greene (4th, Surrey, BC) continues to lead the Canada West in passing, averaging more than 300 yards per game.
Greene has just four interceptions in 244 attempts and is also in the top 10 in rushing with 60 yards per game on 53 carries – the most of any quarterback in the conference.
He is also closing in on the team record for most passing yards in a regular season. Greene's 2137 yards this season is behind only Adrian Rainbow (2310 in 2005) and Jordan Gagner (2357 in 1988) for best throwing seasons in team history.
Greene is also knotted with his coach (
Shawn Olson, 15 TD passes in 2000) for second in TD passes in a regular season for UBC. The Surrey native trails only Adrian Rainbow (19 in 1995).
Jordan Grieve (4th, Salmon Arm, BC) has been Greene's top target and is the Thunderbirds' big-play threat, averaging nearly 20 yards per catch for 672 yards on just 34 receptions. UBC has four receivers in the top 10 in receiving yards per game, while no other team has more than two. Last week, it was senior
Mitch Shuster's (5th, Vancouver, BC) turn to shine. He caught seven passes against Alberta for 153 yards and a touchdown.
The Thunderbirds rank last in several defensive categories, including yards allowed (513.7/game) and passing yards allowed (274.7/game).
But the defence also has a knack for the big play.
UBC leads the conference with 11 interceptions, with two of them returned for touchdowns.
Connor Flynn (5th, Vancouver, BC) and
Serge Kaminsky (5th, Richmond, BC) lead the conference with six and five sacks on the season, respectively.
Defensive back
Chris Mark (5th, Surrey, BC) was last week's conference player of the week on defence, recording eight tackles and a 55-yard interception return touchdown as the Thunderbirds. It was the second week in a row a UBC player won the defensive award.
Flynn, Kaminsky and Mark are among the fifth-year players who will be playing in their last regular season games at Thunderbird Stadium on Saturday. The others include Shuster,
Dave Boyd (Duncan, BC),
Levar Hayden (Burnaby, BC),
Devin Kavanagh (Montreal, QC),
Sam Carino (Burnaby, BC) and
Jordy Kyle (Regina, SK).
Kicker
Billy Pavlopoulos (3rd, Georgetown, ON) was named the conference's special teams player of the week.
The Calgary Dinos have already clinched first place in the regular season standings as well as home field advantage leading up the Vanier Cup.
But there will still be plenty of motivation for Calgary in Saturday's game.
The team will try to complete a perfect 8-0 regular season for the first time in the school's 47 years of football.
Head coach Blake Nill celebrated his 100th CIS victory last week with a 41-24 defeat of Manitoba at McMahon Stadium to clinch first place. As has been the story throughout the season, it happened with the run game – this time sparked by Matt Walter's 141-yard performance. It moved Walter to within just 14 yards of 4,000 on his career – a milestone just eight other CIS players have reached.
Calgary's offence is averaging nearly 510 total yards, 39 points, and 276 rushing yards per game on the season – easily the best totals in the conference in all three areas. But the Dinos' defence has also stepped up – Calgary leads Canada West in points allowed (17.1/game), total yards allowed (308.7), rushing yards (118.6), passing yards (190.1), and sacks (19). The Dinos boast a +14 turnover margin – six better than second-place UBC – and have held opponents to just 16.7 first downs per game. They'll have their hands full with UBC quarterback Greene, however, who's widely considered the likely Canada West nominee for the Hec Crighton trophy.
Offensively, Lumbala's 817 yards has him just one off Regina's Adrian Charles for the conference's rushing lead, and he'll look to leapfrog Charles against the UBC run defence, which has allowed almost 240 yards per game. That total against the Dinos back in Week 2 was 351 yards, 204 of which came courtesy Lumbala.
Kicker Johnny Mark has been an impressive success story for the Dinos in 2011 as well. The 19-year-old redshirt freshman has missed just one of his 18 field goal tries on the year for an impressive 94.4 per cent success rate, and he enters the last week of the season just one field goal away from tying Aaron Ifield's single-season school record of 18 – which he set last season.
UBC and Calgary met in the second week of the regular season, with the Dinos coming out on top 30-25.
But it took an 85-yard drive in the waning moments of the game, completed with a Steven Lumbala touchdown, for the Dinos to finally take the win.
Lumbala had 80 of the 85 yards on that game-winning drive as the Dinos ran the ball on every play.
- with files from Ben Matchett (Calgary Assistant Athletic Director)
