Local product Tre Ford set for new opportunity with Tiger-Cats

He won’t be the starting quarterback—Bo Levi Mitchell has had two of the best three seasons of his Hall of Fame career the past couple of years—but it’s wise to remember this about Tre Ford.

He’s never lost a game at Hamilton Stadium.

A couple of provincial high school championships, comeback wins for Edmonton in his first two professional starts and a memorable fourth quarter off the bench to score 20 points in a loss that fell under the ledger of McLeod Bethel-Thompson, who had started for the Elks.

The Tiger-Cats signed Ford to a two-year contract on Monday, bringing him closer to Niagara Falls, where he grew up and where he and his family are staying temporarily while they decide where they’ll reside during the season.

The 2021 Hec Creighton Trophy winner as the best player in Canadian university football, the former Waterloo Warrior became a free agent last week as the Elks opted for Cody Fajardo, who had supplanted Ford after the team started 1-4 last season.

Ford said there were a number of reasons he signed with Hamilton, where he’ll join an experienced quarterback room that includes returnees Mitchell, Jake Dolegala and Harrison Frost.

“The big reasons are, obviously, being given a chance to work with Scott (Milanovich) and Bo and just soaking that whole experience in,” Ford said Monday afternoon. “And being close to family and friends. I’m just down the highway from Niagara Falls and you go 70 kilometres in the other direction and I’m just down the highway from Waterloo and all my coaches and old Waterloo teammates.

“It is home for me. I have two young kids and always flying all over the place is not beneficial for family.  And there is also the great opportunity to learn from Bo and also work with Scott. He’s a great coach and has done some great things with quarterbacks in the past including Bo of course. Bo had that one year that wasn’t great and then he’s come back and had two great years, so I think there’s a lot of upside in coming to Hamilton.”

He has had a couple of discussions with Milanovich and with quarterbacks coach Jarryd Baines who recently added offensive coordinator to his portfolio, but those talks were mostly about arranging to get together to start working on the playbook.

“Tre is a talented young quarterback who will add value to our QB room,” Milanovich said. “Like all of our quarterbacks he will be judged based on what we see in the meeting rooms and practice as well as the way he performs in the games. Bo Levi Mitchell is our captain and unquestioned starter at quarterback and Tre will have a great opportunity to learn from him and compete for our backup quarterback job. I am very excited to work with him and look forward to helping him become the player that he knows he can be.”

Which is pretty much in step with how Ford himself sees it. He’s still young, turning 28 in March, and has 60 CFL games under his belt after Edmonton made him the No. 8 overall draft choice in 2022.

“Bo’s been playing at a very high level so any time he is able to get on the field, it’s good for the football team,” Ford said. “I don’t think there are many situations where you’d want to take him off the field but I’m 100 per cent open to whatever package they want me to do. I don’t know yet what they’re going to ask from me but whatever they do I’m 100 per cent up for it.”

Given that Ford is one of the best in the CFL at elongating plays with his legs, buying time for his receivers and thinning out defensive coverage with his “escapability”, especially to the wide side of the field, it could be that the Ticats construct certain series of plays they use for a change of pace, or to broaden their play-action offence to include some pass-run-option looks which pressure the outside edges of a defence and force wide side linebackers, halfbacks and defensive ends to make quick decisions. It also provides more for receivers to get open with scramble routes.

When asked to assess his assets, and shortcomings, Ford said, “I’m good at the quick game and RPOs and I think I have the athletic ability, and the ability to expand the pocket and extend plays.

“I think there are a lot of things you can improve on and that goes for any quarterback whether it’s identifying defences faster and being more comfortable in the pocket. Sometimes younger quarterbacks, we have that timer in our head, feeling ‘I have to get out of the pocket after three seconds.’ So, it’s just being true to the pocket and using the scrambling and athletic ability once the pocket does break down.”

He says he “holds no hatred” toward the Elks organization and that “you have to live and learn from your mistakes. I’m just looking forward to the next chapter.”

“Obviously it didn’t go how I planned it to go, if it did we would have won the Grey Cup and I would have been MVP. We were putting our best foot forward and they didn’t think I was best for that situation. Which is totally fine. Cody came in and gave us a bit of a spark.”

Ford has played three career games against the Ticats, one in each of his first three seasons, 2022, ’23 and ’24 and they were all notable. In those games combined he went 38-for-60 (63 per cent) with six touchdowns and just one interception and 454 yards. He also rushed 14 times for 140 yards.

He got his first career victory in his first career start: in Hamilton on Canada Day 2022, when the Elks came back from a 22-9 deficit to win 29-24. The comeback was triggered by a couple of weaving first-down runs and a pass completion on scramble drill to Kenny Lawler, his new-again teammate in Hamilton.

His second CFL victory was in mid-August 2023 also in Hamilton, in a game delayed by lightning for 90 minutes at the start of the second half. It was the Elks’ first win of the season.

And in 2024 he replaced Bethel-Thompson at the beginning of the fourth quarter with the game already decided by the Ticats’ 40-8 lead. But he threw for 151 yards, ran for another 61 and put up 20 points over the final 15 minutes.

As well as Lawler, Ford knows Tyler Ternowski well. They were teammates at Waterloo and in high school played against each other in a famous snow bowl at A.N. Myer High School in The Falls, when the field was piled up with the white stuff except for the plowed sidelines and goal lines. Ford’s team prevailed easily over Ternowski’s MacNab Lions in that OFSAA qualifier. He is also friends with Cats receiver Kiondré Smith (Guelph) from their OUA days.

“I feel like I know a decent number of guys on the team,” he said, “Kenny was there my first year in Edmonton, Ante Litre was there too, and there’s Keaton Brueggling (from St. Catharines). It’s nice to have some familiar faces so you’re not walking into a completely new situation.”

One nuance of the Ford signing is that over the past couple of years the CFL has retailored its quarterback-contingent rules so that a Canadian pivot counts on the roster ratio, as long as he plays in that game, which can free up a spot for an American at another offensive spot when the National quarterback is in the game. That could alter how the roster is eventually constructed.

But there’s still plenty of off-season—and quarterback prep time—before then. Time to learn from Milanovich and Mitchell.