Redblacks coach Dyce is familiar with Elks’ situation

Article content

Bob Dyce has stood on the other end of the sidelines a couple of times.

He knows what it’s like to be in the shoes of Jarious Jackson, who this week became the Edmonton Elks interim head coach (after already being their offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach) when they fired Chris Jones after an 0-5 start.

Dyce has had that interim tag slapped on him twice after in-season firings — in 2015, when he was promoted from his job as Saskatchewan Roughriders special teams coordinator to the replacement for Corey Chamblin after an 0-9 nose-dive from the gate, and in 2022, when he was special teams coordinator of the Ottawa Redblacks before taking over from Paul LaPolice’s following a 3-11 start.

Article content

Both the Roughriders and the Redblacks won their first game under Dyce, upsetting the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (37-19) and Montreal Alouettes (24-18), respectively, and the Elks will be attempting to give Jackson a similar taste of immediate success when they visit the Redblacks on Friday (7 p.m.) at TD Place.

The Redblacks won the first of the home-and-home series by a 37-34 score Sunday night.

“I would say it’s kind of similar to the situation in 2015 … it was a little bit shorter of a week and you have to get going,” said Dyce, who had five days before his first game as the Roughriders boss. “Those type of emotions only last for so long. What we have to continue to focus on is not their coaching change … it doesn’t affect how we prepare. Their coaching change doesn’t change the players that they have. We have a definite golden recipe on what we need to do to be successful. And that’s what we focus on.

“You can say: ‘Oh, maybe there will be an emotional charge,’ but every week teams are emotionally charged to come out,” he added with a little spin-doctoring. “To me, whether it’s a false motivation, we don’t worry about that. We worry about the things that we control.”

Article content

Redblacks linebacker Adarius Pickett has also experienced an in-season change when he was with the Montreal Alouettes in 2022 and they fired both head coach Khari Jones (who went on to become Redblacks offensive coordinator for a year) and defensive coordinator Barron Miles (who went on to take the same job in Ottawa) after an 1-3 start.

With GM Danny Maciocia taking over from Jones, Montreal won its first game after the change, defeating the Redblacks, 40-33.

“It’s tough, you know, when players have relationships with coaches and stuff like that,” said Pickett. “They’re going to try to come out and play for their interim coach.”

This week the Elks also hired one of their former players, Almondo Sewell, as their new defensive line coach.

“I know they like him, so they’re going to try to play for him,” said Pickett. “They’re going to come out with energy and intensity. They want to win the game. They’re going to try to come in here and do that.”

The Redblacks want this one too.

Not only are they looking to win back-to-back games for the first time in a calendar year, but they are trying to establish a ‘Bank Street Bullies’ attitude and this would improve their home record to 3-0 this season.

Article content

While not looking past the Elks, a win would put them two points behind the East-leading Montreal Alouettes, who are on a bye this week.

When they return, the Als could be without quarterback Cody Fajardo for a few games, as he suffered a. hamstring injury last week in Montreal’s 37-18 loss to the Argos, most of which with backup Caleb Evans at quarterback.

But don’t suggest to Pickett that the Fajardo injury could leave the division wide open.

“The division has always been open,” Pickett said emphatically. “I don’t know why people think that it hasn’t. If you look at the games that have been played, nothing is set in stone. Last year when I was in Toronto, we were 16-2. It didn’t matter, we lost (to Montreal in the division final). So the division remains open. It’s only gonna be one team that goes to the Grey Cup from the East and one team that goes to the Grey Cup from the West. You got to play football. You got to take it one week at a time. You can’t look all the way down the line. You know what the end goal is, but you got to take care of business week to week.”

DEDMON DOWN

As expected, the Redblacks will be without return specialist extraordinaire DeVonte Dedmon, who was carried off the field by teammates Wednesday at practice because of a lower body injury. Expected to take over his duties is Kalil (The Thrill) Pimpleton, who while with Central Michigan was the MAC Special Teams Player of the Year in 2021. “It hurts to see our returner go down, he’s certainly such a valuable guy to the team and one of the best, if not the best, in the in the league,” said Pimpleton. “But when my opportunity comes, when it presents itself for me to get back there and return, I have a strong passion for returning.  Not only receiving, but I have a very strong passion for returning the ball. And definitely, when my name is called to get out there, better believe that you’re gonna get the best of me.” Tobias Harris should also see some return time, unless Pimpleton has a big an impact in that role as he did in his CFL debut as a receiver last week.

Article content

GOING DEEP

After his offence accounted for 23 first downs and 520 total yards in Edmonton on Sunday, what can be expected from OC Tommy Condell against the same defence five days later? Is he at an advantage or disadvantage in the chess match against Elks defensive coordinator Jason Shivers? “Back to backs are always kind of weird,” said Condell. “It’s like basketball. All the adjustments that are made from that, what they’re going to do and how they’re going to do it, but you still have to wait to see, and it’s a short week. So all that goes into play. But once they roll the ball out there, we’re going to play, and then we’re going to have to adjust, and we have to be great adaptors for whatever they do. It all comes down to us, and are we going to be able to execute. Every play that we design, you know, from an execution standpoint, we want to score with, and it has options, it has opportunities for big plays, and has opportunities for things that, if the defense does this, or does that, that we have to do. But everyone has to do their 1-12th, so to speak. Whatever they do, we have to execute.”

dbrennan@postmedia.com

Article content