The Université de Montréal Carabins earned their first victory of the regular season after defeating the Concordia Stingers on home turf.
The Carabins outperformed the Stingers in almost every facet of the game Saturday afternoon at CEPSUM Stadium. They owned advantages in offensive yards, turnovers forced, and field goals converted.
Both teams knew that this season would look different from years past.
Concordia and Montréal entered their season opener with new starting quarterbacks. The Stingers saw the departure of their veteran quarterback of three years, Olivier Roy, after graduating from the university.
The team now relies on wide receiver turned quarterback, Xavier Tremblay, to fill the big shoes.
“‘X’ has been doing this since January; he knew that he was potentially going to be the guy,” said Stingers head coach Brad Collinson about the transition from Roy to Tremblay.
The Carabins had a similar challenge at hand. They introduced a tandem of third-year veteran Rakim Canal-Charles and 20-year-old rookie Jose A. "Pepe" Gonzalez as their new offensive leaders.
This comes after their star quarterback, Jonathan Sénécal, was selected by the Montréal Alouettes in this year’s CFL draft. Though Sénécal was ultimately cut by the Alouettes, he decided against returning for his fifth year of eligiblity.
The new offensive weapons for Montréal, however, did not skip a beat.
Although Montréal conceded the first two points of the game off a strategic safety, they fired back by driving 53 yards up the field in six plays to score their first touchdown of the season.
Despite a strong following drive, the Stingers failed to score any additional points during the opening quarter, which ended with a 7-2 Montréal lead.
The floodgates opened up in the second quarter as the Carabins used an early touchdown to gain heavy momentum. Gonzalez dropped back in the pocket and found receiver Brandon Gourgon for a 51-yard reception that would reach the end zone.
Ten minutes later, Montréal used a good field position to tack on seven more points following Gonzalez’s second touchdown of the game. The Carabins held a one-sided 22-4 lead at half.
Gonzalez earned most of the quarterback reps in the first half for drives that began with good field position.
Canal-Charles played in three of the drives while seeing more playing time in the second half. He talked about the tandem with Gonzalez coming into the season.
Carabins running back Lucas Bertet-Dembele leaps over Stingers defensive back Mendel Joseph on Saturday afternoon. Bertet-Dembele would finish with 53 yards on seven rushing attempts. Photo: Montreal Carabins
“It is definitely not something I have done before, splitting reps with another quarterback,” Canal Charles said. “But it was a lot of fun. We came in thinking, ‘let’s play our brand of football,’ and we did just that.”
Montréal continued to dominate early in the third quarter when punt returner Ismael Akué ran the ball 63 yards to the Concordia 18-yard line.
They capitalized on a quick, three-play drive and touchdown to go up 29-5. Concordia brought their deficit to 22 points, but they had scored all seven of their points through three quarters on safeties, rouges, and singles.
After Canal-Charles and Gonzalez teamed up on a fourth-quarter drive to score another touchdown, Concordia finally added one of its own.
Tremblay found third-year wide receiver Oriola Poirier open downfield and connected on a pass that would go 87 yards to the end zone, giving Concordia their first touchdown of the game and the season.
Tremblay would finish the afternoon going 22 for 35, which was good for 326 yards – a strong outing against a tough opponent in his first career U SPORTS game at quarterback.
Despite one interception and three sacks, Collinson praised his new quarterback postgame. “I feel that he handled it well. He made some mistakes, but I think that everything is correctable.”
The Carabins would go on to add a safety and a field goal en route to their lopsided victory.
Montréal will have a short, six-day break before its next matchup against the Université de Sherbrooke Vert et Or on the road, while Concordia will get an early bye and look to get in the win column against their rival McGill University Redbirds on Sept. 5.