VANCOUVER — When it comes to a post-mortem discussion of the 2024 UBC Thunderbirds football season, one which ended with a stunning 38-33 Hardy Cup semifinal home field loss to the Saskatchewan Huskies, you must first determine the focal length at which the conversation must begin.
So do you want to take the macro view of a season which absolutely oozed with positive vibes?
Or is your portal to the same season via the micro view, an angle from which all you will remember is the fact that the Thunderbirds, 15 minutes from a chance to repeat as Hardy Cup champions for the first time in 37 years, somehow played the worst fourth quarter of their entire campaign?
For all of those involved from both sides it was hard not to be in the moment see things through the micro lens where reality was a spot on either side of the most contrasted of emotions.
“I don’t know what to say,” said a shocked UBC head coach Blake Nill, whose team led 33-24 heading into the final minute of play, but somehow gave up two touchdowns over a span of 31 seconds to lose. “I have never been a part of anything that drastic before.”
It was, in fact, the complete antithesis of UBC’s 2023 Hardy Cup championship game win at Thunderbird in which Birds got a walk-off extra-point from kicker Kieran Flannery-Fleck after going 95 yards over the final 52 seconds to stun the Calgary Dinos 28-27.
This time around, to say that Nill and the rest of the team were stunned in an entirely different way was putting it mildly, especially when you consider that all of this came on the heels of what might have been UBC’s best third quarter of the entire 2024 season.
The ‘Birds, who led 21-20 at the half, not only held the Huskies pointless in the third, they scored 12 more themselves to assume total momentum and a 33-20 lead after 45 minutes. Yet it’s tough to process what happened next… how a UBC team which held Saskatchewan to three first downs and only 26 yards of offence in that third quarter, finished up yielding 12 first downs and 227 yards over a fourth quarter in which its own offence could manage just 66 yards.
All of this, of course, was transpiring despite the fact that the team was forced to play without the services of injured running back Isaiah Knight, the nation’s third-leading rusher, who was late enough of a pre-game scratch to catch the Huskies by complete surprise.
Afterwards, Saskatchewan head coach Scott Flory couldn’t help but get a little philosophical about a sport which so often times swings in sways in ways which defy explanation.
“You look at football and often times its a tale of two halves, and you can even break that down into four different worlds with the quarters,” Flory said of how Saturday’s contest seemed to turn on a dime as the third frame morphed into the fourth.
“It’s the swings, the highs and lows, and that is the beauty of the sport,” he continued as his third-seeded Huskies defied the biggest odds to host next week’s Hardy Cup conference final in Saskatoon against a fourth-seeded Regina Rams team which upset No. 1 Manitoba on the road Saturday in Winnipeg. Both the ‘Birds and the Huskies knew the result of that game before they came back out onto the field for the second half.
“All of this is the beauty of the sport,” Flory continued. “It can rip your heart out, but it can also be (like rescuing) the damsel in distress… and that is indeed what is was here today. With our team, we kept telling the group ‘(UBC) are going to make plays… just don’t get stuck in those valleys and also don’t ride too high.’ They just had to keep calm and keep believing in themselves and the guy next to them. That’s what they did.”
How did it happen?
It started with what would turn out to be the first of two miraculous Huskies plays over the game’s final three minutes.
With 2:57 remaining, Saskatchewan was driving at the UBC 46-yard line, looking to take yet another chunk out of the Thunderbirds’ then-33-24 lead.
Huskies quarterback Anton Amundrud, however, had his pass up the middle deflected skywards by ‘Birds star linebacker Jaxon Ciraolo-Brown.
UBC safety Maxwell Kennedy made a tremendous interception, and for a split second, it looked like the home team had found a way to snuff out Saskatchewan’s attempt at an 11th-hour comeback rally.
Yet that is when Huskies’ receiver Ercy Avul, an Abbotsford-W.J. Mouat grad, upended Kennedy with a perfectly-executed tackle to jar the ball loose. It came with such precision that it would have knocked the ball loose from any NFL safety you could care to mention.
Saskatchewan running back Ryker Frank would then pounce on the ball, his recovery coming at the UBC 34-yard line.
Although the Huskies ensuing possession ended with a missed 42-yard field goal by kicker Lukas Scott, the bottom line was a drive that could well have led to a game-sealing 40-24 UBC lead with perhaps two minutes remaining, instead remained rife for an upset as the Huskies continued to build momentum on the backs of their belief.
And with that in mind, Saskatchewan continued on its road to a miracle comeback.
The Huskies held UBC to a three-and-out on the next series, then went 67 yards in just three plays, capped by Amundrud’s 33-yard touchdown pass to Avul, one which ultimately pulled the visitors to within 33-31 with just 60 seconds remaining.
Then came the second miraculous play.
Kicker Scott put down what can only be described as the perfect onside kick.
Huskies safety Katley Joseph recovered the ball at the UBC 52-yard line, and four Ryker Frank-handoffs later, the running back was in the end zone on a one-yard carry, ultimately winning the game with 22 seconds remaining,
If you’re scoring at home, that’s two touchdowns in 31 seconds over the game’s final minute with the opportunities coming from both a forced fumble of its own intercepted pass, and the successful recovery of an onside kick.
Sometimes the unexplainable is just that, but Flory tried to put it into words: “He (Kicker Lukas Scott) missed two field goals today, but then he made that play. We are three-for-three in on-side kicks this season. It’s kind of unreal.”
Added UBC senior receiver Sam Davenport, who made six catches for 162 yards including a 75-yard strike from quarterback Garrett Rooker, when asked to describe the ‘Birds fourth quarter: “We just stopped dead. We’ve got to continue what we had been doing all game and we didn’t. That’s the price you pay. Teams will come back in the fourth quarter and Sask is a good team. They made us pay. You can’t win a football game playing three quarters. Got to play four.”
With the loss still too fresh to fully comprehend, Nill did his best to sum up the disappointment of the day and what it meant to the season.
“We must have had a half-dozen chances to finish that game,” he said. “We let them back in and it was simple mistakes. The point is, I tell the kids all the time that more than the other team winning, you lose it, and that is what happened.”
The macro view?
It shows you a UBC team whose roster included just four fifth-year regulars . Tight end Brad Hladik, cornerback Jerrell Cummings, and linebackers Jaxon Ciraolo-Brown and Mitchell Townsend won’t be back.
Yet it’s too soon to tell who, among an 18-strong class of fourth-years, including starting quarterback Garrett Rooker, will also decide to pursue other options, thus electing not to return. Not everyone will be back, but you can count on a good portion returning to keep the ‘Birds in any conversation for another shot at Canada West conference spoils.
And how about the wide-eyed view of the future beyond this season’s fourth- and fifth-year players?
It’s extremely bright and you can start with the fact that coming into the 2024 season, UBC lost its two starting tackles to the NFL, but somehow seemed to seamlessly replace them with a pair of freshmen — Caleb Cunningham and Axel Statton — both of whom managed to start every game for a team that went on an impressive five-game winning streak and boasted one of the most impressive offences in Canada.
And on the defensive side, the ‘Birds front will be manned by the likes of Aaron Parker, Deacon Sterna and Aiden Bertuzzi.
It’s still too early to tell who will and who won’t be back to form the nucleus of the 2025 UBC Thunderbirds football team.
Nill himself admits he doesn’t yet know, but did say “There’s some things in the cupboard.”
All that can be said with certainty is that losses of the enormity of the one which transpired over the weekend are not commonplace.
They are rare enough, in fact, that it bears repeating what Nill, a 27-year head coaching veteran with three Vanier Cup national titles to his credit, said in the post-game moments following Saturday’s stunner.
“I don’t know what to say. I have never been a part of anything that drastic before.”
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