Sporting Madness

York Lions head coach Warren Craney made two interesting hires today , picking Michael Faulds as the team's new offensive coordinator and Eric Laflamme as their new defensive coordinator. Although it's his first coaching job at the CIS level, Faulds needs no introduction to CIS football fans; he finished up a stellar quarterbacking career at Western last year and holds the CIS all-time passing record with 10,811 career yards. He led the Mustangs to back-to-back Yates Cups in 2007 and 2008, took them to the 2008 Vanier Cup, where they fell to Laval, and brought them back to the Yates this past year, where they lost to Queen's. He also played for Team Canada at the Global Junior Championships. There was some talk that a CFL team might consider giving him a shot, but nothing seemed to materialize. This move would suggest that Faulds' playing career is at an end. His CIS coaching career may just be beginning, but Faulds already has some experience in the field. He has ...

In a few short months, the Waterloo doping scandal has gone from an investigation of one player to a team-wide investigation to league-wide concerns over drug testing. Today saw the first tangible impact on a league-wide scale, though; as Sean Fitz-Gerald of The Canadian Press reports , Waterloo has suspended its football program for the coming year. The coaching staff has been placed on paid administrative leave. I'll get into analysis on this later, and I believe Rob Pettapiece has a post coming at The CIS Blog as well, but for now, let's focus on the facts. As Mark Masters reports , Canadian Centre for Ethics In Sport (the organization that oversees CIS drug testing) president Paul Melia announced that nine anti-doping violations were found after tests of Waterloo's 62 football players. As Masters writes, CIS CEO Marg McGregor called it "the biggest doping situation in CIS history. "The results announced today illustrate that the CIS core value ...

It's been a good couple of weeks for CIS football. After a strong showing by CIS prospects in the CFL draft, including first-overall pick Shomari Williams (who I interviewed before the draft), six CIS players appear in good shape to catch on with NFL teams. The Detroit Lions signed [ Sean Yuille , Pride Of Detroit ] Laurier defensive end Chima Ihekwoaba after their rookie minicamp [ Tom Kowalski , Mlive.com , via Ron Balaskovitz ], and Concordia linebacker Cory Greenwood signed with [ Mark Masters , National Post ] the Kansas City Chiefs today. Waterloo offensive lineman Joel Reinders has signed with Cleveland [ David Naylor , The Globe and Mail , Concordia offensive lineman Kristian Matte has inked a deal with Houston [ Herb Zurkowsky , The Gazette ], Bishop's wide receiver Shawn Gore reached an agreement with Green Bay [ Dave Heller , Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel ] and Regina wide receiver Jordan Sisco signed with the Indianapolis Colts [ Ian Hamilton , Regina Le...

The CFL draft is coming up [ Jaime Stein , CFL.ca ] this Sunday (noon Eastern, TSN). It's always an exciting time of the year, particularly from the perspective of watching CIS stars making the jump to the pros. To get you excited for it, here's an e-mail interview I just conducted with Shomari Williams , the Queen's defensive end who led the Gaels to the Vanier Cup this year and is ranked first overall by the CFL's scouting bureau. We talked about the CFL, CIS, the NCAA and his up-and-coming business helping recruits. My questions and his responses are below (slight edits for clarity). Andrew Bucholtz: You've made a pretty meteoric rise up the CFL Scouting Bureau rankings, from #15 at the start of last season to #4 in December to #1 earlier this year. Do you pay any attention to the rankings, and if so, what did it feel like to take over the top spot? Shomari Williams: It felt great being named the top prospect in Canada. I worked real hard all season and ...

There's an interesting piece from Ian Hamilton in the Regina Leader-Post today. Hamilton talks to Regina Rams head coach Frank McCrystal and comes away with a couple of valuable notes. First, he addresses the new Canada West schedule. In the wake of SFU's departure, the conference is down to six teams, which could provide an opportunity to balance the schedule for everyone. That's something McCrystal would like to see. "We put all this time and money and effort into the football program, so let's play more games," he told Hamilton. "We should be playing 10 games. We should be playing everybody twice." This might be worth looking at. Currently, the conference plays eight regular-season games, and that hasn't changed thanks to SFU's departure. At the moment, the Rams get Saskatchewan, Calgary and Manitoba twice each, face UBC on the road and host Alberta. I'm not sure if that's "easily the toughest schedule in the CIS"...

One of the side effects of SFU's decision to jump to NCAA Division II and UBC's subsequent decision to remain in CIS for the time being was the potential loss of CIS football's most storied games, the annual Shrum Bowl between the two teams. The Shrum Bowl has been contested 32 times over the years and always gets a fair bit of attention; everyone in the Lower Mainland knows about the UBC-SFU rivalry, and the annual football game has been one of its best expressions. Fortunately, as Howard Tsumura of The Province reports , that's going to continue for at least this year. Oddly enough, SFU's switch to the NCAA both threatened and preserved this year's game. The two teams will no longer meet in Canada West competition, but the Clan's departure left Canada West with only six football teams and forced a conference-wide bye on the Oct. 8-10 weekend. During that bye, the game will be played under the Friday night lights at UBC's Thunderbird Stadium on Oct....

It's nice to see CFL teams actually giving Canadian (and CIS!) quarterbacks a look for once. Shortly after the Hamilton Tiger-Cats added Erik Glavic (of Saint Mary's Huskies and Calgary Dinos fame) to their negotiating list, the Toronto Argonauts announced that they'd signed Queen's Vanier Cup-winning quarterback Danny Brannagan . There's a good piece from Chris Zelkovich in today's Toronto Star on the matter, talking to both Brannagan and Glavic about their invites to the CFL's evaluation camp this past weekend and the proposal that would allow teams to bring a Canadian QB to camp without taking up a roster spot. Of course, this is very early, and there's no guarantee that any of these Canadian quarterbacks will actually get a shot to prove that they belong. Still, progress is always good, and you have to start somewhere. Maybe this can be one of the first steps towards a real evaluation of quarterbacks based on their skills , rather than national...

The University of Guelph announced this morning that Kyle Walters will be stepping down as their head football coach [thanks to Jaime Stein for the tip]. The press release says Walters "will be parting ways with the Gryphons to focus on pursuing coaching ventures elsewhere at the professional level." Mike Treadgold , the sports and health editor of The Ontarion (Guelph's student newspaper), tweeted this morning that a source informed him Walters is off to Winnipeg to become the special teams coordinator with the CFL's Blue Bombers, and also mentioned that rumour on his blog . It isn't completely confirmed yet, but that certainly sounds plausible given both the Bombers' coaching turnover and Walters' apparent desire to seek opportunities at the professional level. Guelph may miss Walters. He was only the head coach for four years and only put up a 13-18-1 record overall, but the team certainly seemed to be on the rise recently. They've made the...

Join me and the rest of the cast from The CIS Blog for a live blog of the Vanier Cup contest between Queen's and the University of Calgary. Kickoff is set for 12 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Mountain/9 a.m. Pacific. The Final Countdown! Vanier Cup live blog, Calgary vs. Queen's

This year in CIS (Canadian Interuniversity Sport) football has seen some crazy games. The Ontario playoffs in particular have been excellent, and the Queen's Golden Gaels emerged as Yates Cup champions with wins over the McMaster Marauders and the Western Mustangs . Today, they knocked off the Laval Rouge et Or 33-30 (see my friend and former Queen's Journal colleague Mike Woods ' CP story here ) to advance to the Vanier Cup , the Canadian university championship. There, they'll take on the University of Calgary Dinos, who demolished the Saint Mary's Huskies 38-14 in the Uteck Bowl earlier today. In the wake of the Queen's game, Canwest News Service's Peter James made an interesting remark that served as the inspiration for this post. Tongue-in-cheek, he tweeted , "BCS supporters can point to the #CIS to show why their system works. Queen's upset prevented at No. 1 vs. No 2 Vanier Cup." That's true, as Laval ranked first and Calga...

I'll be live-blogging the Queen's - Laval CIS football showdown in the Mitchell Bowl tomorrow (Saturday) at 1 p.m. Eastern with the rest of the crew from The CIS Blog . Laval's heavily favoured, but as I said on Norman James ' radio show this evening, Queen's may be able to hang with them. Laval's taken a bit of a step back this year and the Gaels have really come on. In my mind, the key is winning the trench fights, and Queen's offensive linemen (particularly centre Dan Bederman and guards Vince DeCivita and Jonathan Koidis ) and defensive linemen (especially ends Osie Ukwuoma and Shomari Williams ) did just that last week against Western. If they can pull that off again, my prediction of Queen's by a field goal may yet come true. Come join in the fun at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific. <a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=a5c5491660" ...

(Cell phone pics may not be impressive, but they're all I could get.) Last week, I bemoaned how many of us in the media often transform quarterbacks from a story into the story of a game. Yet, if you were to pick a game where quarterbacks were the story, Saturday’s Yates Cup clash between the Western Mustangs and the Queen’s Golden Gaels would be a pretty good one. With the head-to-head matchup of Michael Faulds and Danny Brannagan , two 10,000 yard passers and the top two guys on the CIS career passing list, many expected a passing shootout, and they were not disappointed. Faulds completed 25 of 38 passes for 509 yards and one touchdown in a losing cause, while Brannagan completed 27 of 47 for 515 yards and five touchdowns in Queen’s 43-39 victory and was named Yates Cup MVP. Both passers threw for over 500 yards, which is an incredible feat. There are only nine 500-yard passing games in the history of the NFL, and perhaps a few more in the CFL; I wasn’t able to find those...

Join us in the live blog below! Thanks to Arden Zwelling of the Western Gazette for hosting! <a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=f1dd57622f" >OUA Semi-Finals — Western vs. Laurier</a>

Join us in the live blog below! <a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=fcdeda428e" >OUA Semifinal live blog: McMaster-Queen's</a>

Just a quick note that I'll be live-blogging today's OUA playoff football games with a cast of characters from The CIS Blog , Always OUA and The Western Gazette , among others. Queen's takes on McMaster at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m Pacific, and Western takes on Laurier at 4:30 p.m. Eastern/1:30 p.m. Pacific. Both games are on The Score , and both live blogs will be posted here. Hope to see you then!

I'll be live-blogging the McMaster-Guelph game today, which is on The Score 's University Rush program at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific. I'll also have some thoughts on other CIS football games around the league, including the Queen's - Laurier clash, which I'll be listening to on CFRC . Come join in then for any and all CIS football talk! If the CFL is more your thing, I'll also be live-blogging the B.C. - Saskatchewan clash at 5 p.m. Eastern/2 p.m. Pacific. McMaster - Guelph

Couple of things to let readers know about. I'll be appearing on Norman James ' great show The Hook on London, Ontario's AM 980 later today around 6 p.m. Eastern/3 p.m. Pacific to discuss CIS football. Tune in via their listen live service if you're interested in catching the show! There are plenty of interesting matters to cover, especially the upcoming Western - Queen's game next weekend. Check out my Top 10 ballot from this past week for a general idea of my thoughts on where the various teams stand, and as always, look at The CIS Blog for all the recent CIS news and opinion pieces from Neate, the rest of the cast and myself.I'm also going to be live-blogging the first leg of the Vancouver Whitecaps - Montreal Impact USL-1 final live from Swangard Stadium later in the day. That will take place here and at The 24th Minute and Epic Footy . The game is at 9:30 p.m. Eastern/6:30 p.m. Pacific; it can be heard on The TEAM 1040 and seen on USL Live . I'm ho...

This weekend saw plenty of turmoil in CIS football, with No. 1 Laval, No. 2 Western, No.8 Laurier and co-No.10 Alberta all suffering losses, making the Top 10 perhaps more difficult to analyze than ever. With my natural sense of good timing, I figured it would be the perfect week to start revealing my ballot choices; they'll be easier to mock than ever! I'm a firm believer that there isn't necessarily a right way to rank the Top 10. It's an opinion poll of people who know a lot about the game, which means that the overall rankings are very valuable in my mind. Each individual voter likely approaches their ballot differently, though, and that's a good thing; it would be an extremely boring universe if we all thought alike. Thus, there are probably plenty of good reasons for anyone to disagree with any individual ballot, but that doesn't diminish the validity of the ballot, the thought and effort that went into it or the importance of the overall rankings. I try...

It should be a great day in CIS football, as the No. 2 Western Mustangs take on the No. 10 Guelph Gryphons live on The Score 's University Rush. I'll be live-blogging it here and at The CIS Blog with Neate Sager and Rob Pettapiece , plus anyone else who can make it out. Kickoff is at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific. Come join us then! Western-Guelph liveblog

The CFL's always a good option for CIS football diehards looking for offseason entertainment, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders are one of the teams to watch. As Neate pointed out with his list of CIS players in the CFL the other day, Saskatchewan is well ahead of the rest of the league in terms of CIS content. The Roughriders, who start their season tonight against the B.C. Lions, have a league-high 21 CIS-trained players on their roster. I'll be live-blogging the game here tonight; kickoff is at 9 p.m. Eastern. Saskatchewan's Canadian-trained talent is perhaps most evident in the receiving corps, where the Riders have two players who are already stars (slotback Jason Clermont from the University of Regina and wide receiver Andy Fantuz from Western) and three more with serious star potential (wide receiver Rob Bagg from Queen's, who I profiled here , slotback Chris Getzlaf from the University of Regina and wide receiver Adam Nicolson from the University of Ottawa...