Gryphons focus on the positives after losing Homecoming for fourth year in a row
Sasha Odesse
Guelph suffered a disheartening loss this weekend, giving up Homecoming to the McMaster Marauders who broke away from the Gryphons in the second half of the game to finish with a 37-13 victory.
“Obviously [the team] is disappointed,” said head coach, Stu Lang. “We’ve struggled through the first four games and we had higher expectations of how we were going to perform and how we would be in the league standings. But you learn your lessons and you move on.”
Although Gryphon defence was exceptionally strong in the first half, scoring soon became one-sided following halftime.
“I think [defence] just wore out. The offence know what they’re going to do, so they get tired less easily in the game,” said Lang. “The defence is always on pins and needles trying to be aware of what the opponent is going to show. They played sound football in the first half but when you get tired you don’t think as clear and there were some assignment mistakes that created opportunities for McMaster.”
Despite the loss, there were many redeeming highlights of the game that gave the 9,500 fans in attendance something to really cheer about.
“I think from the defensive standpoint the turnovers were a big success. On the offensive side, Kevin Campbell–who has traditionally been ignored because of fellows like Jedd Gardner and Dillon Dimitroff– the last couple of games has done extremely well, has scored another touchdown, plays on all the special teams and had that highlight reel play where he caught a little swing pass coming out of the backfield and running down the sidelines he pointed out a guy as if to say ‘I’m going to run over you’ and he leapfrogged over him and got another 10 yards. [That] certainly got us excited on the sidelines,” said Lang.
As McMaster gained stride in the third quarter however, Gryphon chants seemed to grow quieter as an irritating MAC cheer, “Guelph is rattled” grew louder. And after the fourth year of losing Homecoming Gryphon fans are certainly feeling just that.
“Maybe we should play a less talented team. It seems to be what they do in the U.S,” joked Lang, but on a more positive note added “one of these days, as I said to the players, our time will come. Even though we’re not playing as well as we should, from a program standpoint, we’re doing a lot of positive things.”
If you were in attendance at the game or watched it from home, you may have noticed a change– a change in colour that is. Where in past games there has been a flash of red jerseys as our boys entered the stadium, black jerseys and helmets were donned for the first time.
“We want to build a coolness factor to come to Guelph. You know we have the best practice field, we have the best performance centre upstairs in our stadium and now we have several uniforms that our players can mix and match for football games. So you have the coolness factor and then the fact that you’re playing in front of a packed audience in two games, game one and game two were packed. You want to play in a noisy stadium,” said Lang.
In preparation for the Gryphons’ next home game against York, which will also be themed as a Breast Cancer Awareness game, the team will definitely be seeing some changes.
“I think right now we need to shake things up and give some other players an opportunity to play. We’re one in three, so we can’t brag or boast,” said Lang. “We’ve already ordered a lot of pink attire to focus on a very important charity. So at least again we’re going to have some fun and hopefully the fans come out and support us and support a very worthy cause.”
For more information on upcoming football games Gryphon fans can check out gryphons.ca or visit the Athletic Centre.
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