Stuff that really should presented in podcast form, but let's not kid ourselves: you don't have time to listen! Instead it gets presented in written word format. How Web 2.0! In For A Dozen will be a weekly middle-of-the-week ritual that strives to put university sports in the context of a world where one can no longer Stick To Sports. 

  1. It really beggars processing that Ottawa defensive end Loïc Kayembe is dead and his teammates are carrying on by trying to prepare for the Panda Game, which will be in front of a crowd that dwarfs their usual audience by a factor of 10. One day the 24-year-old Kayembe was playing a football game. The next day the Congolese-born Montrealer was gone, leaving a void in dozens of lives. There's no predicting or extrapolating how the Gee-Gees will respond once they return to competition. A GoFundMe to help pay for Kayembe's memorial service reached its goal inside of a day.
  2. Hindsight is 20/20, but it feels like 37 C. It was stinking-hot in Ontario during the last two football Saturdays, with temperatures ranging above 30 C and high humidity, which was exacerbated by the sun's warming effect on rubber-pelleted FieldTurf playing surfaces.

    No doubt every team took every precaution to make sure players were hydrated and had some shade on the sidelines. One does wonder — and please don't read this as finger-pointing — how humid it has to be before teams move game times away from the hottest time of day.

    Logistically, could there be some edict from on high to push a game times to late afternoon? It's one variable that can be controlled. 
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Talk about your all time hot-take starters. The week began with No. 1 Montréal posting an offensive touchdown-less 16-3 win against McGill. Oddly enough, Laval slogged by Concordia 12-8 in Ste-Foy, Que., on Sunday.

Does that make anyone reconsider their support of the Carabins and (update, Sunday 6 p.m.) the Rouge et Or, especially after Calgary hung half-a-hundred on Saskatchewan?

Montréal has been a near-unanimous No. 1 for the past two weeks. They couldn't breach the end zone of a team that gave up 68 points a week earlier against Concordia, and McGill had one fewer day of turnaround. Bad look, Carabins.

So it's a muddle between Calgary and the two Quebec powers, notwithstanding Montréal's head-to-head win against Laval — always the notwithstanding clause with Quebec, eh? If only there was some way to get the trio on the field with Ontario's purple people. At least OUA has a Western-Laurier matchup of unbeatens next week.

Oh right:
Anyway, the final results from the late-ish Satuday

  • Laval survived 12-8 against Concordia, which might lead to downgrading stock on the Rouge et Or whilst also vaulting the Stingers into the Top 10.
  • QB Adam Sinagra didn't finish, but No. 3 Calgary pulled away for to deal No. 10 Saskatchewan its second three-touchdown loss in a row (51-28). For those scoring at home, they have the internet on computers, Grandpa, and the Dinos scoring average actually dipped to 57 points a game. Queen's has 57 points all season.
  • Remember that suspicion No. 6 Regina was overhyped? Manitoba got off the schneid with a two-point win after both Rams kickers missed late field goals that might have forced overtime. So Manitoba erased the zero in the win column, and added a couple to the career tally for Brian Dobie.
    Regina and Saskatchewan play next week so we'll soon know who's more Top 10-worthy. For now, you can just write both team names on a 3x5 file card and throw them down the stairs.
  • While the Rams lost to a winless team, UBC and Western scored an easy 40-something on a pair of winless squads.

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Scoreline of the week: Waterloo 45, Carleton 43

So the Battle of Waterloo will be between undefeateds, and no one saw that coming.

When the preseason chatter picked up, there was a thought that Waterloo would get a win or three against the soft underbelly of OUA. The Warriors going to 4-0 after surmounting a 20-point halftime deficit against Carleton takes it up a couple notches. So often it seems underdogs, or teams that don't have a history of winning, just accept their fate at that point Instead, Lucas McConnell and the Warriors offence converted on third-and-longish on back-to-back touchdown drives late in the third quarter. Waterloo scored on five consecutive possessions (on drives covering 74, 61, 75, 84 and 50 yards).

Then there was a last stand with 12 seconds left to seal Waterloo's latest biggest-win-since.


All told, there 1,314 yards offence (679 Waterloo, 635 Carleton).
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One man with courage makes a majority, and where I come from — Canada — we reward courage. Montréal is the new No. 1 team in the nation, but not unanimously. Take a bow, Gord Randall of KROWN Countdown U, for being the one to give the Dinos a first-place vote.

The ballot went as follows:

Source: U Sports


There's two games with down-ballot implications this week. Ottawa is at McMaster for a Brass In Pocket Bowl (since, you know, one of them is a pretender). Saskatchewan and coach Scott Flory get a major test at UBC.


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The Patriots, Ohio State, Notre Dame and Laval all lost, which makes it a perfect football weekend for at least 48 hours since my beloveds don't play until Monday evening.

 A late Brian Harelimana interception and some vital second-down pickups by Samuel Caron in the final 90 seconds helped Montréal shade Laval 21-16 in the season's first Poll Bowl, as they wiggled out of a tight spot late.
As far as rankings ramifications go, the Quebec heavyweights likely just trade spots, but Calgary's winning margin against Regina might lead to it picking up some first-place votes. The Dinos as well as Western (against McMaster) also defeated ranked teams by cushy margins. Laurier had a scare from Carleton which might restrict its chances of leapfrogging Regina.

That's not necessarily how I plan to vote, but more of an anticipation of how everyone will proceed. The ballot will be released on Tuesday at 1 p.m. ... here is how everyone fared:
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An editor's note: the Top 10 committee wants contributors to not share their ballots over social media before the final one is released on Tuesdays. On general principle, I dislike that and the level of engagement on Twitter and with the blog would suggest there was some appreciation for letting people in on how a voter evaluates it in real time. There is a nettle to push back, but ultimately one has to play ball. So onward and upward with everyone pulling on the same rope and being a good teammate, one message, and all that.

 The way to work around that is to just have a Top 10 tracker that just lists each ranked team (and some also-in-consideration teams) by their ranking going in and adds some time-stamped commentary after each bloc of games (Friday night in Canada West and AUS, Saturday in Ontario and Quebec) is completed.
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Ballots were due at 10 p.m. ET on Monday, or about 35 minutes after Guelph at No. 5 (on my ballot) Western kicked off after being delayed by an electrical storm. So one just had to go off of form and send in a ballot in, so you can anticipate what happened next. Western and Guelph ended up playing a barnburner, with the Mustangs prevailing 41-34 in overtime.

Anyone who told you Western, Ottawa and Waterloo would be the 2-0 2-0 teams in OUA after two weeks is lying. Laurier and McMaster are 1-0 after having their byes.


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