Hope springs eternal, especially in the spring.
The brain trust of every CFL team emerges from winter free agency and the early-spring Canadian draft, believing their club has improved since they last played a game in anger. But looking ahead to Sunday’s first official day of training camp at McMaster and back at the three days of rookie mini-camp which just ended, my objective-journalist history whispers to me that the Tiger-Cats and their fans should be feeling plenty of optimism for this year.
The proof is always in the pudding, and the 2026 ingredients are just being put on the stove, but the Ticats will hit the ground running when full, fatiguing practice begins Monday morning after Sunday’s opening-day workout, which involves mostly conditioning.
With plenty of returnees, lots of added CFL experience, more thorough depth, and Bo Levi Mitchell coming off two of the three best seasons of his storied career, the offence should be starting ahead of even last spring, when they were deeper into the playbook and overall philosophy than they had been for years. The coaching staff has continuity and has been amplified—quarterbacks coach Jarryd Baines, for instance, has added offensive coordinator to his thickening career portfolio—and there is proven depth at almost all positions on an offence that was among the league’s most productive last season. Yes, an All-CFL centre and running back have moved on, and so have receivers Tim White and Brendan O’Leary-Orange, but no team, even a happy one which came within a couple of plays of a Grey Cup appearance, remains constant year to year in pro sports’ liquid modern era.
Beyond installing their offensive schemes so they’re just humming for the home opener, the next couple of weeks, the Ticat offence will be looking primarily at finding a couple of American running backs, one a potential game-day starter, the other capable of stepping up from the practice roster, and competition for depth and practice-to-practice competitive threats at tackle.
“We’re all excited,” Scott Milanovich said during rookie camp, as he said that there has been a significant evolution since his first training camp at the helm just two Mays ago. “Expectations are high. I think the (coaching continuity) puts us in a good spot, as opposed to two years ago when everything was new, the staff was new, the offence was new.
“I think it puts us several notches above where we were. And even last year, (returning coordinator) Brent Monson and the defensive staff were new. So, there’s continuity everywhere. Bob (Dyce, special teams coordinator) is new, but Bob’s been doing this for 24 years. You look at the special teams, and I just feel like we’re a couple notches above where we’ve been in the past. And we’ve got the locker room the way we want it.”
Milanovich has said several times that the 2025 Ticats had the most exemplary locker-room culture he’s ever encountered in his football career.
The head coach has also pointed out that despite the loss of starting linebacker Devin Veresuk to the NFL after his promising CFL rookie campaign, the Ticats are in a far better Canadian-ratio roster position than they were in May 2025, “when we were still working on who the seventh Canadian starter would be.” After trades and free-agent signings, the Ticats have 31 Canadians under contract, and that doesn’t count their 2026 draft class, which targeted a couple of specific needs, most notably special teams and depth on both sides of the line of scrimmage.
Milanovich was also candid that—at the moment and barring injuries or any other sudden developments—there are starting positions that are gapingly open for new players, but only a few of them.
“We’ve lost field corner (Jonathan Moxey), we lost field half (DaShaun Amos), we lost our running back (Greg Bell),” Milanovich said. “So those are the top ones. There’s going to be competition at receiver, both Canadian and American. And D-line wise, we lost Casey Sayles.”
There will also be hearty battles at punter and at receiver, despite a deep and talented returning core, and depth at linebacker and in the trenches.
Milanovich and his staff got long looks—on and off the field—at rookies and some returning sophomores in mini-camp. Because of smaller numbers, everyone got a lot of reps. For most of the survivors, they had more snaps than they will see starting Monday, so they had to catch the coach’s eye in how they played, but also how they embraced and grasped the playbook and film review.
He also cautioned newcomers that the tempo at main camp “is going to be twice as fast” as it was earlier this week.
It was a small sample size, but a couple of things stood out to a sideline observer at rookie camp.
One of those things falls under the general theme—and the Ticats have said all off-season that whenever you don’t win, or at least reach, the Grey Cup, you have to get better—some of that upgrade has to come within. And a pro player’s largest improvement opportunity is often in his second season, when the game starts to slow down and his reaction time speeds up.
Accordingly, during mini-camp, the two players I noticed most were here last year; 6-foot-7 offensive tackle Brayden Swartout, who was in his second camp and spent the entire campaign on the practice roster, and cornerback Zamari Walton, who came north from Ole Miss with five previous years at Tennessee. He started two games last year in the absence of all-star Jamal Peters and made seven tackles. His combination of footwork, pattern recognition, physical coverage, and long arms (he’s 6-3) stood well above the rest.
Also catching my eye at defensive back was Kaleb Hayes, who spent the last three seasons with five different NFL teams but didn’t graduate to a game-day roster. He evolved rapidly as camp went on, as did Canadian defensive back Jake Nitychoruk, a 2025 draft pick.
There was strong rookie camp play at what will be the hotly contested spot of American running back, although there was no real hitting, so full contact and pre-season games will likely decide that run-off. Shane Watts, who is muscular, hyper-focused and has a tremendous vertical catching ability, was noticeable, as was Larry Rountree III, who is very physical at 210 pounds and has had 39 carries in the NFL, including a touchdown.
At receiver, there was much better route-running and use of the waggle and body angles over the second two days than on Day 1, as newcomers acclimatized themselves. Returnee Myron Mitchell, who finished last year on the practice roster, made some good catches in traffic, as did 6-foot-3, 212-pounder Blayne Taylor, who has run a legitimate 4.44 40-yard dash.
And most menacing was tight end Max Mang, the Ticats’ second choice in last year’s Global draft. He grew up in Germany, spent five years at Syracuse, and when he gets a full head of steam is like a freight train. Milanovich has been committed to “true” tight end play—the Cats’ Jevoni Robinson was the only official tight end listed with CFL stats last year—so Mang looks like a keeper.
There were eight different players taking punt and kick returns, although one of the marquee free agency signings was proven star, Mario Alford.
Special teams abilities, including return capabilities, will determine some of the backup roles at defensive back, receiver and running back.
In general, the calibre of play at rookie camp was probably equal at the upper end to what it was last year, but that calibre ran much deeper into the rookie class of 2026. And the overall play was much quicker, ball-responsive, and, it seemed, more intuitive.
But as Milanovich frankly told his newest players, things will be a lot tougher and far more competitive when veterans pull on their jerseys…beginning Sunday morning.
CATS CLAUSES
Current NFL safety started as a very young volunteer helper at the Ticats training camp
Ticats’ equipment manager Drew Stroschein remembers a training camp back in 2005 when Russell Yeast, then only five years old, used to lend him a hand with football gear.
“He was a little kid running around and helping us move blocking pads, doing some other small jobs, watching his father from the sidelines,” Stroschein was recalling this week.
Today, Russ Yeast is a safety in the NFL and has been in the league since 2022 after four college seasons at Louisville before spending a fifth year at Kansas State.
His father, Craig Yeast, also played in the NFL, then was a wide receiver, and a good one for the Ticats for four seasons, ending in June 2006. In 2003, he led the Cats in all-purpose yards, mostly on returns, and then put together back-to-back 1,000-yard-plus receiving seasons with a total of 11 touchdowns over the two campaigns before he was released early the next season and finished his career with Saskatchewan.
Russ Yeast started some games for the Los Angeles Rams as a rookie and sophomore pro, then spent time with Carolina, Houston and Arizona before signing a reserve/future contract with the Cincinnati Bengals in January.
Ticat SAM linebacker Reggie Stubblefield—aka “Uno”—is a close friend of the NFLer who worked in the Ticat clubhouse doing chores when he was barely more than a toddler. They both transferred into K-State for their final seasons, played in the same defensive backfield, were in the same draft and still work out regularly together in Houston during the off-season.
“We have an amazing relationship,” Stubblefield was saying this week as he watched rookies practice at Mac. “We’ve been really good friends since we helped turn K-State’s program around.”
That’s a lot of fight songs: 81 different schools, as UBC leads the way with 4 Cats
As training camp opens, we usually do a rundown, which tracks the college and university origins of the players vying for positions on the Ticats’ 2026 active and practice rosters.
That concept has changed a little because of the radical alterations to U.S. college eligibility, transfer portals, and career-length stimulated by NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) payments in the NCAA (major programs) and NAIA (small colleges).
So, numerous Ticats and prospective Ticats have played for multiple colleges (some as many as four) before turning pro. The bragging-rights numbers which follow reflect only the schools where players in camp spent their final season:
Ticats on the field, starting on Sunday, come from 81 different colleges and universities—19 in Canada and 62 in the U.S.
With defensive backs Stavros Katsantonis and Ronan Horrall, defensive lineman Arvin Hosseini, and linebacker Ryan Baker, the UBC Thunderbirds lead the way with four former Thunderbirds in camp, all of whom were with the Cats last season, too.
McMaster (Owen Hubert, Jakub Szott, Tyson Middlemost) boasts three Cats; again, all CFL vets. Western, Guelph, Waterloo, Ottawa, Carleton and Alberta two each. Eleven U Sports programs send one rep to this year’s camp.
Stateside, there are Ticat hopefuls from programs as massive as Oklahoma to as small as Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas (total student enrolment about 1800).
Kansas, Kansas State, Grand Valley State, Brigham Young, Fresno State, Coastal Carolina, and Michigan State are represented by two players this week, and the 55 programs each have one on the Cats’ training camp roster.
