HAMILTON, CANADA - OCTOBER 11: CFL regular season game action between the Calgary Stampeders and the Hamilton Tiagercats at Hamilton Field on October 11, 2025 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Christian Bender/CFL)
As they head into their bye week, a first-place finish still unclaimed, the Tiger-Cats say they’re disappointed, not worried.
“But we’re definitely going to reflect on it,” veteran Hamilton offensive guard Brandon Revenberg said after the Calgary Stampeders out-started, out-finished, and definitely out-ran the Cats on the way to a fully deserved 37-20 win Saturday afternoon at Hamilton Stadium, the Ticats’ second slow-start loss in the last three games.
“We’re going to watch the film and correct the issues we have, but ultimately you have to move forward. We’ll watch it; we won’t dwell on it, but we have to make corrections and move on from there. We’ve got one more game and then the playoffs, so get ready for it.”
The Ticats have known for two weeks they’re in the playoffs and known for more than a week, after they had a terrific victory in Toronto, that they’d be hosting a post-season game. But they still do not know if that’ll be the East Final as conference regular-season winners, or the East semi-final, as the runners-up to the Montréal Alouettes, who still have three games to play — including a Thanksgiving Monday home date with the last-place Ottawa Redblacks — while the Cats just have the schedule finale Oct. 24 against the Redblacks.
Going into the game, what the Ticats needed to nail down first, and the extra week of rest that goes with it, was a win of their own or one loss by the Als. Monday morning, that’s what they still needed.
This was a chance for the Ticats to not only launch themselves into some downtime feeling good, but to really muster serious home-field momentum, with their next two games — Game No. 18, and the playoff — at their own stadium. But the 10-7 Cats dropped to 4-4 at home.
They started slowly – as in, really slowly – Bo Levi Mitchell throwing an interception on Hamilton’s first play from scrimmage and the defence allowing a lot of yards, but only field goals on the board — in the opening half.
“No, not particularly in this room,” Mitchell replied when asked if there was any concern about the team’s second ineffective performance and opening half in the past three games.
“But understand the words coming from the outside.
“But I’ve spoken about it all season, that it wasn’t going to be about clinching these last couple of games. It’s more about going there and playing football, and the win takes care of itself.”
Neither of the above happened.
The Ticats, who were tied for the league lead in protecting their quarterback from sacks, surrendered four of them to a ferocious and very sure-tackling Calgary defence. Mitchell overthrew a couple of receivers when they’d beaten coverage, Tim White let slip two passes early, although both would have been very difficult catches, and the Ticats couldn’t establish running back Greg Bell, who had amassed 550 yards on 82 carries the previous five games but had only nine rushes for just 31 yards on Saturday.
And the defence, while stiffening to allow only four René Paredes field goals in the first half, was deeply vulnerable to the triple-barrelled running of Stamps’ quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. and the tandem of veteran power runner Dedrick Mills and Canadian rookie Ludovick Choquette. Hamilton was outrushed 155-to-6 in the first half as the Stamps piled up 236 yards of net offence in the first two quarters, compared to only 97 for Hamilton.
Still, Hamilton trailed only 20-6 at the intermission and did pull to within one score at 27-20 early in the fourth after Jevoni Robinson channelled his pro basketball skills with a jump-ball touchdown reception. It was Mitchell’s second throwing major of the game. But the Stamps and Adams’ offence responded to the Ticat threat with a field goal, turnover on downs, an interception and a touchdown in the final 10 minutes.
Mitchell did throw for more than 300 yards and reached 34 touchdown passes, one short of his career high, with strikes to and good catches by Robinson and Kenny Lawler, who has 14 TD receptions, just one short of Tony Champion’s franchise record. But he also had two picks for just the second time this season, fumbled twice (alertly recovering both) and was sacked four times.
‘Four sacks?’ a displeased Revenberg said. ‘It’s a kick in the ****. We got a slow start, obviously, and we have to play better, and we will.’
Mitchell said that the Stampeders “came out, had a better plan. We didn’t execute as players, do what we have to, and that’s our job. Take care of your job, myself in particular, put yourself in position to go out there and get a win.”
Head coach Scott Milanovich said he didn’t think his team came out flat so much as, “We just didn’t execute very well. We gave them hope. We gave them confidence. Lost the turnover battle, lost the rushing battle and the physicality battle.
“We tried to make a run that was too little, too late. You make a couple of plays early like we did a week ago in Toronto, and everybody else responds to that. We just didn’t make any plays early to kind of get our team going.”
Both teams’ defences were among the most yardage-surrendering units in the league, but survived the bend-but-don’t-break equation with a stream of big plays like forced fumbles, interceptions, sacks, key knockdowns, and inspired second-down play as the opponent nears paydirt. Only one defence did that on Saturday, and it was not dressed in black and gold. The Stamps got an average of two more yards on first downs and were successful on too many 2nd-and-longs. They had four “big plays” (runs of over 20 yards, passes over 30) to the Ticats’ two.
Mills scored twice to give him five rushing touchdowns against the Ticats in two head-to-head meetings this year, after he had three in Calgary’s win on opening night.
The Ticats missed too many tackles all night, against the run and after the catch, and Adams challenged the seams on the wide side.
“We straight up got our butts kicked, at the end of the day,” said Hamilton safety Stavros Katsantonis. “We weren’t executing to the level we normally do. Hats off to V.A., he played a really good game, didn’t turn the ball over…just exposed us a bit there on our execution game.
“Explosive plays are everything in this league. The more you give up, the harder it is to not let them score. We just have to be better about limiting those. It just wasn’t good enough today.”
Fellow defensive back Jonathan Moxey was equally as direct: “They came here with a good game plan, and they executed, and we didn’t. Simple as that.
“We have to find a way to get better; review the film, see where we went wrong, what adjustments we have to make. We have playoff football coming up. We don’t know how it’s going to shake out with the rest of the games still going on, but all we can control is what we can control. We have to review the film, lock in and find a way to get better before we get into the playoffs. V.A. is a good player, a veteran. He did his job, and we didn’t.”
From this angle, the volume of yardage the defence has been surrendering, especially in the earlier and later going, can put enormous pressure on all 12 men to make big plays to balance the possession time and downfield progress. In six of the last nine games, the defence has given up at least 400 yards. But they’ve also created 14 turnovers in those games. The only turnover on Saturday was a result of Calgary’s decision not to punt at 3rd-and-5 with six seconds left in the game.
And big plays or not, the Ticats need to be more consistent against the run. Their motto all week was “stop the run first.” But Mills had 105 yards, including a 31-yarder, and Choquette, a small cannonball of determination, needed only seven carries for his 71 rushing yards, which included a 44-yard touchdown up the gut.
“They just gave us a mixed bag of runs; there were counters, inside zones, outside zones,” said Ticat middle linebacker Devin Veresuk. “It was a lot. We just have to take full responsibility and get better, with our eyes and with our feet, and play better football all around.”
The Stampeders arrived in town highly motivated by a four-team battle for a playoff spot, and perhaps a home playoff game, and climbed to 9-7. After Winnipeg (8-8) was beaten 25-20 by Edmonton (7-9) in the nightcap of Saturday’s double-header, Calgary moved into a tie with B.C. for second place in the West, but is ranked third based on head-to-head results.
It’s possible that one of those four will find themselves in Hamilton in November. The Ticats have a home playoff game secured and are still in the driver’s seat for hosting the East Final. The East semi-final would involve whoever finishes fourth in the West.
Hamilton defensive back Destin Talbert said that while “there was no real explanation” for the Ticats’ second weak outing in three weeks, “I look around the locker room and I don’t feel concerned at all. I feel very calm. I’m here wishing we did better, but I’ve lost no confidence in our team.
“I keep repeating it and sound like a broken record: it’s just opportunities like starting slow and then ending slow. You have a full game to make plays.”
CATS CLAUSES: Bo Levi Mitchell was 25-for-39, 306 yards, two TDs and two interceptions, and moved past Matt Dunigan into eighth place on the CFL’s career passing yardage list. He went over 5000 yards (5032) for the second straight season and fourth time in his 14-year career … Kenny Lawler and Tim White each had eight receptions, Lawler for 113 yards and White for 104, leaving him needing 53 yards to become the second Ticat (Darren Flutie) ever to reach 1000 yards in four straight seasons. If he gets those yards in the season finale against Ottawa the Ticats will have Lawler, Kiondré Smith and White all over 1000, the first time since 2017 (Jalen Saunders, Speedy Banks, Luke Tasker) that they’ll have had three receivers reach 1000 … 27 of Mitchell’s 39 pass attempts went to Lawler (13) and White (14) … Reggie Stubblefield had the Ticats’ only sack … Brian Cole II had two special teams tackles giving him 18 on the season … attendance was 22,313 … Calgary quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. was 16-for-23 for 257 yards without a touchdown pass or interception … Dominique Rhymes upped his streak to 70 games with at least one reception. He made four of them Saturday for 57 yards … Erik Brooks had two catches for 94 yards … Clarence Hicks and Charles Wiley each had two sacks for the Stamps … René Paredes was 5-for-6 in field goals while the Cats’ Marc Liegghio was 2-for-2.
