Frankly Speaking: Rams can win if they stop beating themselves

By Greg Urbanoski

If the University of Regina Rams continue to beat themselves, there is no way they are going to beat their opponents.

However, as the Rams prepare to depart for Edmonton for a date with the University of Alberta Golden Bears, Rams Head Coach Frank McCrystal is telling his team by concentrating on the basics, the rest will take care of itself.

“As much as you’d like to think this is a complicated game, it’s not,” said McCrystal. “Each team tries to cancel out the other and at most levels of football, you try to get mismatches or situations where you can get the better of your opponent. Last Sunday was a challenge and this week is another challenge.

While the Rams lost to the nationally fourth-ranked University of Manitoba Bison 36-13, the Golden Bears were held at bay by the University of Saskatchewan Huskies 45-14. Last year the Rams clinched a playoff spot by beating the Bears 36-25 in a snowstorm in Edmonton.

McCrystal is expecting another tough test from the Bears.

“They are not going to do a lot of things differently,” said McCrystal. “They haven’t made a lot of wholesale changes and even though they didn’t pass well against the Huskies, I think they are still going to try to pass the ball against us.”

McCrystal is in the finishing stages of finalizing the Rams traveling roster, but said looking at the film of the Rams-Bison game will determine what happens.

“We beat ourselves,” said McCrystal.

“I said before the game we needed to execute and we needed to stay away from penalties. What happened was that we had dropped balls and penalties that negated good gains.”

The Rams haven’t settled yet on who they will be taking on their traveling squad to Edmonton, but McCrystal said a number of younger players will be making the trip. The Rams are also looking forward to the return of Nick Hutchins who is starting again after an injury prior to camp.

“One thing we need to avoid altogether is taking a 10 yard run and hitting some guy in the back,” said McCrystal.

“The officials will always make those calls against you, but the bottom line is we shouldn’t be making those types of plays.”

While a premium is being placed on discipline play, McCrystal said the Rams are in pretty good shape physically after the Bison game.

“We had no injuries and we came away from that game physically pretty good,” said McCrystal. “We’ve always been a physical team and we weren’t pushed around.”

McCrystal is pleased with the way the Rams run defense responded to the challenge of the Bison running game. 

“I’m encouraged by what we saw,” admitted McCrystal.

“The bottom line is that we dropped the game. We did improve our run defense, but we have to continue to eliminate penalties, ensure our discipline is there and see our offense take off. I’m sure our offense will do well, what we saw in this last game is more of an anomaly. The way our offense played against Manitoba was more the exception rather than the rule.”


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