VANCOUVER – For the second straight year, the UBC Thunderbirds find themselves on the playoff road in Saskatchewan as they head to the provincial capital to battle the Regina Rams for a Hardy Cup semifinal matchup Saturday afternoon.
A year removed from a semifinal loss to the eventual Hardy Cup champion Saskatchewan Huskies, the 2022 T-Birds are deeper on both sides of the ball and hungrier than ever to make their way to their first conference championship game since 2017.
Anytime a team is forced to play a do-or-die game in Saskatchewan in November, it's far from an easy task and this year is no exception. The Rams powered their way to a second place 5-3 record this season on the strength of a tremendous defence, especially against the run, limiting opposing rushers to an average of just 81 yards per game. It makes for a playoff collision course with the T-Birds, the top rushing team in the Canada West.
"There's no question Regina's defence is in direct conflict with what we do best," said UBC Head Coach
Blake Nill who has a 22-12 Canada West postseason record heading into Saturday. "You don't have to go too far down the storylines to recognize that's going to be a big part of the game. The other components, their offence, is certainly more than capable of putting up big points. We've got to prove ourselves on that side of the ball as well. It matches up well, this should be a very strong showcase of Canada West football."
Just as the T-Birds' season was turning around having won two straight games to improve to 3-3, UBC lost last year's Canada West Rookie of the Year when starting quarterback
Garrett Rooker suffered a season-ending injury early in week seven's game against the Huskies. But rather than sink UBC, they got right back to work with backup
Derek Engel who has proven to be up to the challenge, leading the 'Birds to an upset win over Saskatchewan while throwing for 330 yards last week in Alberta. In short – Rooker's loss hurts but is in no way going to define anything as far as UBC is concerned.
"We probably threw the ball twice as much as we normally do," said Nill of last week's strategy where Engel put up 51 total pass attempts in his first collegiate start. "One of our priorities for that particular game was to get Engel as much experience as we could. Essentially we got him two games worth of experience last Saturday and hopefully it pays off when it counts in Regina."
The end result in Edmonton last week was a 15-12 loss to the Bears, but it was a game that had zero repercussions for the T-Birds who already knew they were off to Regina to begin the playoffs. In addition to getting Engel some much-needed game reps, week eight also allowed an opportunity to prepare others for the grind of the postseason.
"Last week's game in Alberta was a hard fought game, we made our intentions clear how we wanted to approach that week," added Nill. "Yes it would have been nice to come out with a victory, full credit to Alberta for not allowing that, but our focus is 100 percent on football playoffs which is do or die. (Regina Head Coach) Mark McConkey has done a tremendous job with his crew in Regina. This is going to be a very charged game, there's going to be a lot of motivated young men on both sides of the ball and we've got to match that tempo. If we don't, we're going to be in for a long afternoon."
The T-Birds and Rams met just once during the 2022 regular season, a 21-16 Regina victory at Thunderbird Stadium, the only home loss for UBC. Saturday marks the third playoff meeting between the T-Birds and Rams in Nill's seven seasons in Vancouver with UBC coming out on top in each of the previous two, most recently a 28-21 win in the 2017 semifinal game at Thunderbird Stadium.
A win Saturday would punch UBC's ticket to their first Hardy Cup final since that same year, setting up a meeting with the winner of this week's other semifinal between the defending champion Huskies and the fourth-place Manitoba Bisons.
Kickoff at Mosaic Stadium between the T-Birds and Rams is set for 3:00 p.m. PT Saturday, November 5. The game will be streamed live on
Canada West TV and will also be available on TELUS.
