As the old saying goes, revenge is a dish best served cold. The Montreal Carabins served up a frozen portion on behalf of their province on Saturday, defeating the Saskatchewan Huskies 30-16 in the 60th Vanier Cup — one week after the Alouettes fell to the Roughriders in the Grey Cup
Montreal also prevented Saskatchewan from picking up the Canadian football hat-trick at Mosaic Stadium, leaving the host province with only wins in the Grey Cup and the CJFL’s Canadian Bowl.
While the score was relatively close for most of the game, the Carabins’ offence was simply too much for the Huskies to overcome. Montreal slowly took over the game throughout the second half.
The Huskies have now lost seven straight Vanier Cups. The win is Montreal’s third in school history.
Here’s the good, the bad, and the dumb of the 60th Vanier Cup in Regina.
The Good
Freshman quarterbacks aren’t supposed to lead their teams to championships in university/college football, but that’s exactly what Montreal’s Pepe Gonzalez has done.
The Mexican-born, Quebec-raised pivot had himself a game in his very first Vanier Cup appearance. The 20-year-old finished the game 27-for-33 for 344 yards and three touchdowns, earning himself well-deserved MVP honours.
It’s safe to say that quarterback play was one of the biggest differences in this game. Gonzalez, who admitted he was a little nervous before the game, eventually settled in and was able to hit a few long passes to open up the Huskies’ defence. No disrespect to Huskies backup quarterback Jake Farrell, who did all he could to get the Huskies to this point after being thrust into the starting job under tough circumstances, but it’s clear that Gonzalez is just on another level.
I’m willing to bet this won’t be the last time we see him under centre at Mosaic Stadium.
The Bad
If you follow me throughout the CFL season, you know that I don’t like writing about officiating. But it’s pretty difficult not to discuss the stripes after this game.
In the final two minutes of the second quarter, Gonzalez converted a big second-down throw, or at least so we thought. Flags flew as it appeared that he had thrown the ball a good two yards past the line of scrimmage. The penalty should have given the Huskies another chance to stop the Montreal offence, get the ball back, and score before the end of the half.
Except it didn’t.
Inexplicably, the flag was picked up even though just about everyone watching in stadium and at home believed that Gonzalez was well past the line of scrimmage. The Carabins would get a first down and eventually score three more points before the end of the half.
In the end, the bad call didn’t end up costing the Huskies. The Carabins were simply the better team in the second half and were fully deserving of the win, but you hate to see something like that happen in the biggest game of the year in front of U Sports’ biggest audience.
The Dumb
They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and it seems that the Vanier Cup writers were inspired by last week’s Grey Cup.
In that game, you’ll remember the Riders had an early interception and opened the scoring with a rouge. The Riders would eventually pick up the win and take home their fifth Grey Cup in team history.
On Saturday afternoon at Mosaic Stadium, it was Montreal who opened the scoring on the opening kick-off with a rouge. The very first play from scrimmage after that, Farrell tried to force one into double coverage, only to get picked off by Montreal. In the end, it was the Carabins taking home university football’s biggest prize.
I guess the moral of the story is to win football championships in Canada in 2025, all you needed was an early interception and a rouge.
