Tiger-Cats Set for High-Stakes Eastern Final Against Alouettes

Get to this point in the CFL calendar and it’s not particularly relevant who finished where, or did what, during the regular season.

This is a final exam and term work doesn’t carry much weight.

“We just have to understand that this is playoff football,” says all-CFL receiver Kenny Lawler as his pennant-winning Tiger-Cats prepare to meet Eastern runners-up Montreal Alouettes in the East Final Saturday (show starts 2:30 p.m.) at Hamilton Stadium.

“Beating a team two times during the season doesn’t really matter. What really matters is being 1-0 here or else we’re going home. We’ve both had plenty of games in between the last time we played so that doesn’t really matter. If you’re thinking that….those are the wrong thoughts.”

The Cats, despite playing at home—where they have never lost at home to the Als in a single-elimination post-season game in nine previous meetings—and having their best season in six years, are still listed as underdogs against the team they caught for first place in mid-July and held off all the way home.

That is, in essence, a way of saying that the Alouettes did not have injured quarterback Davis Alexander under centre for 10 games, including the Ticats’ victories over the Als: 35-17 in June’s home opener and 26-9 on the road the weekend after Labour Day. Alexander is a latter-day Bo Levi Mitchell, and has not lost any of his 12 career CFL starts. Mitchell was 12-1 after becoming the starter in Calgary 11 years ago.

“I don’t think there’s much to it,” Alexander said late Friday about the possible edge a fresh quarterback can bring into a matchup. “They get to watch tape on me from the games I played. I get to watch the same film on them over 18 games. I truly don’t know if there’s an advantage.

“Bo is a Hall of Famer, he played in the Big Sky (Conference) like me. The very first game I ever saw in the CFL when I was in college Bo was in it. He’s a gunslinger and makes everyone better around him.”

The Ticats actually embrace the multiple challenges they’ll be facing Saturday; the emotional boost of Alexander’s return; the Als have got hot at the right time, winning six of their last seven games, and the only loss was a lame-ducker in the season finale at Winnipeg when they rested a number of big-time starters including Alexander; and a Montréal defence, which the CFL has ranked as the top unit in the entire league.

“Obviously everybody would like to walk into a Grey Cup but you want to play the best,” Mitchell says. “I’m glad we finally get to play this team at their best…our last two times we haven’t got to play their starting quarterback. We’re excited to go out there and play their best.”

Among the more riveting confrontations could take place more than 20 yards away from Mitchell. The Alouettes, who gave up fewer big plays than any other CFL defence this year and surrendered only 20 completions of 30-plus yards, also were top in the league (Hamilton was second at 24).

But the Ticats were among the elite in attempting and completing—often to Lawler—those long passes. The Ticats’ offence was second in the league in scoring, at 29.2 points per game, their best average in six seasons and netted 376 yards of offence per game, third in the CFL while the Montréal defence gave up fewer yards than any other team.

“I want to be the best and in order to do that you have to play the team they say is the best,” Lawler says.

Despite surrendering more yards to opposing offences than all but three CFL defences, the Ticats have feasted upon turnovers this year, with the best turnover ratio in the CFL, and combining to intercept or knock down 99 passes with aggressive play in the secondary. They’ve scored 134 points—one quarter of their entire total—after turnovers, by far the best in the league.

While big plays are always turning points, in last weekend’s two playoff games there were 48 percent more of them than in an average regular-season game.

This is the Ticats’ first must-win—meaning victory or head home—of the season, so hanging onto the football themselves and also forcing the Als to relinquish it will be even more important than it usually is.

“Playoff football is its own monster,” Mitchell says. “As an offence we have to have two hands on the football at all times. And when the defence has the ability to take it away, you’ve gotta score points.”

Ticat head coach Scott Milanovich echoed that when asked Friday afternoon about the keys to victory Saturday.

“Just do what we’ve been good at, which is protect the football and get the football,” he said. “Have explosive plays when the opportunity presents itself, have some balance and when we get turnovers turn those into touchdowns. Doesn’t need to be anything flashy.”

The Ticats can indeed present a more balanced offence than they did in the first half of the season and for the first time in franchise history have had three 1,000-yard receivers (Lawler, Kiondré Smith and Tim White) and a 1,000-yard rusher in Greg Bell.

It was in the September win over the Als, right in Montréal, that Bell came into his own with 156 rushing yards, plus a touchdown, in 20 carries, and another 36 yards on five short pass receptions. Since then he’s had only one game where he’s rushed for fewer than 76 yards and over those final seven games of the regular season he has registered 133 combined touches (carries and catches) for 834 yards.

“Any great passing attack, the running back should have just as many catches as the receiver,” Mitchell says. “He’s important to our offence; he’s integral to everything we do on offence.”

While Lawler and the other members of the deep receiving corps—White, Smith, Shemar Bridges, Brendan O’Leary-Orange, Tyler Ternowski and Jevoni Robinson—have a primary responsibility to run routes, get open and catch the ball, it’s also that they block downfield for Bell once.

“We want to do that for him,” Lawler says. “We know Greg’s our guy and we want to honour him the best way we can so we can’t just catch passes, we have to go out there and block and do some dirty work.”

Mitchell says that’s part of having a balanced offence which is important as the weather cools, the wind picks up and there can always be rain (the forecast says showers shouldn’t arrive until after the game is over).

And that sequesces into the Alouette offence which has become more balanced with the return of Alexander, who can get outside and buy time with his legs for his receivers to get open and to option the wide side of the Ticat secondary.

He’s also got a long roll-call of reliable targets including all-star Tyler Snead, uber-elusive Tyson Philpot, Charleston Rambo, and Cole Spieker, and running back Stevie Scott III has added another dimension with his power. He carried the ball only once in the single game he played against Hamilton this year, but distracted the Bombers last week and pounded for 125 yards in mid-September against the West-leading Saskatchewan Roughriders.

“He’s a big back, he looks like NFL-size guys,” says All-CFL Ticats defensive tackle Casey Sayles. “He hit the holes hard last week and he’s a dynamic player, a guy you have to get low on.”

Scott Milanovich said that with Alexander at quarterback rather than McLeod Bethel-Thompson, “there’s a different element in terms of mobility at that position.”

That’s a variation that’s not lost upon the Ticats defence but not something that causes them trepidation. They tend to concentrate only on their own play.

“Yes, there’s a different quarterback out there but for us we’ve played top quarterbacks just like Davis: Nathan Rourke; Zach Collaros,” said safety Stavros Katsantonis, who earned his first All-CFL berth this year.

“He does a few things different than those guys but for us it’s a matter of dissecting the film of the games he’s played in. And then executing the game plan.”

On a game day of this magnitude, the little details become so amplified that it probably even matters how the players brush their teeth in the morning.

It’s important to play a full 60 minutes because the Als tend to do that, as they demonstrated last weekend when they got a good lead, let it slip away, then found another gear to win and advance to Saturday’s Final. And in last weekend’s two semi-finals, 63 per cent of the total points were scored after the intermission.

Still, it’s advisable to mount a good start against a team that has been on such a roll, although the Ticats have shown they can rally if they do fall behind.

“It’s huge, especially when you’re at home,” Katsantoni says. “You never want to start slow. It’s playoff football.”

CATS CLAUSES: The Ticats’ only roster change has Mario Kendricks replacing Miles Fox at defensive tackle … Bo Levi Mitchell will be making the ninth playoff start of his career. The previous eight were as a Calgary Stampeder. He came off the bench in the Cats’ 2023 semi-final loss in Montréal, the second straight year the Cats were eliminated there in the first round … Marc Liegghio made 33 field goals in a row at one point this season, fourth-longest streak of all time, and broke the club record with a 92.9 per cent success rate … Nik Constantinou’s punting average of 48.3 fell just 0.2 yards short of the Ticats mark set by Joe Zuger in 1971 … Isaiah Wooden, who was the first Hamilton player to ever return two kickoffs for touchdowns in a single season, led the CFL in punt return average at 15.0 yards, a franchise single-season record … Kenny Lawler, then with Winnipeg, had 177 yards for three touchdowns on just four receptions in last year’s West Final victory over Saskatchewan … the Alouettes’ receiver Austin Mack is a game-time decision … Montréal QB Davis Alexander’s 384 passing yards last week made him the third quarterback in franchise history to throw that many playoff yards, joining Anthony Calvillo and Sam Etcheverry (who did it three times). His five completions of 30-plus yards tie the most ever in a single playoff game, last achieved by Bo Levi Mitchell in 2014 … Tyson Philpot recorded 135 receiving yards and a TD on 10 catches vs. Winnipeg, the most in an Alouettes’ post-season game since SJ Green in 2011 … the Alouettes’ DB Darnell Sankey had his fourth career playoff interception in the semi-final, most among active players. He also has 2 career sacks, 3 pass knockdowns and a fumble return in 5 playoff games … K Jose Maltos set a new Alouettes record with 58 field goals, tied for third-most by any player in CFL history … RB Stevie Scott III rushed 71 times for 358 yards over the season’s final six games and another 18 times for 133 yards in the East semi-final … the Alouettes totalled 556 yards of offence vs. Winnipeg, the most by a CFL team in a single post-season game since the Als rang up 578 yards against Hamilton in the 2011 East semifinal, which the Ticats won.

AND ALSO: Hamilton’s all-time playoff record is 46-49-1 (.484 winning percent) while Montréal is 41-37 (.526) … in their 76-year history, the Ticats are 30-17 at home in the playoffs. The Als—Hamilton’s last playoff win over Montréal was the 2021 East semifinal … they lost the 2022 and ’23 semi-finals in Montréal … Montréal has not won an East Finals game in Hamilton since 1970 when they went on to become the last team to win the Grey Cup after finishing third in the East … Hamilton holds a 15-8 edge in all-time playoff series wins against Montréal … the Ticats’ plus-10 was the best turnover ratio (forced turnovers minus their own giveaways) in the CFL, 13 better than last year’s minus-5. Montréal was third at plus-8 … these are two of the most disciplined teams in the league: Hamilton had the fewest penalties on defence and special teams and was 2nd overall at 107 penalty calls. Montreal was third, with 112 overall penalties.

See below the Ticats depth chart and roster for the game: