By Howard TsumuraVarsity LettersYou can think you’re ready for the toughest test in Canada West football, but as the UBC Thunderbirds found out Saturday night in Saskatoon, exorcising the gridiron demons which reside in Saskatoon require an almost maniacal focus on stretch-drive moments.No. 5-ranked Saskatchewan (4-1) rallied back from deficits in the late stages of […]
Tag: Canada west football
A Sunday Read: Is unranked UBC the nation’s best-kept secret? Thunderbirds do it again, this time 31-6 over No. 10 Manitoba! Today we examine how all the moving parts have become one!
By Howard TsumuraVarsity LettersMaybe one of the only things that didn’t unfold as smoothly as planned for the UBC Thunderbirds Saturday night in Winnipeg against the No. 10-ranked Manitoba Bisons was the bobbled snap that wiped out a 32-yard field goal attempt early in the fourth quarter.In that instance, kicker Alexander Hillyard simply improvised, calmly […]
A SUNDAY READ: With nation’s best RB now calling Point Grey home, UBC’s football stakes rise! Coach Nill, at his cautionary best, won’t rest on the laurels of Homecoming win over No. 4 Regina!
By Howard TsumuraVarsity LettersVANCOUVER — No, the UBC Thunderbirds did not steal fire from the football gods.Yet to give credit where it is due, they did maybe the next best thing… they seem to have plucked 18-year-old running back Marvyn Larozar from under the noses of every college and university football program that can claim […]
A SUNDAY READ: The incredible UBC debut of Marvyn Larozar! Behind an incredible stride, how ‘Birds 18-year-old rookie from Ottawa rushed for 285 yards, 4 TDs in Blue-&-Gold home opener!
By Howard TsumuraVarsity LettersVANCOUVER — In its classrooms at UBC, first-year physics students all begin with the knowledge that mass times velocity equals momentum.Across campus on Friday night, those very same principles held true at venerable Thunderbird Stadium where 2,912 fans jammed themselves into the old yard’s cozy confines to watch a first-year running back […]
UBC Football: ‘Birds surrender 17 points in final 93 seconds of opening half en route to 24-10 loss to No. 5 Huskies in 2025’s final home game! Playoff lives now hang in the balance with road finale at Regina!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caVANCOUVER — A team of the world’s best surgeons, each armed with golden scalpels, could have dissected the box score of Friday’s Canada West football game at Thunderbird Stadium until all that remained were ribbons and been no closer to explaining how the hometown Thunderbirds dropped a near must-win 24-10 decision to the […]
Despite epic rally from 25 points down at half & freshman QB Drew Viotto’s 473 yards passing, UBC falls 35-31 to Manitoba! Thunderbirds’ Canada West playoff hopes take another hit!
By Howard Tsumura(VarsityLetters.ca)For the UBC Thunderbirds, it’s been a season in which its ‘ups’ have been doing their brave best to battle a plethora of ‘downs.’And perhaps that’s why after answering one of its most listless opening-half performances in a decade with a second half that seemed to come out of nowhere, it became almost […]
UBC Football: When veteran centre Gavin Coakes sheds tears of joy, it’s all about the origin story of the Thunderbirds’ heart-and-soul offensive line! Next test comes Friday at Alberta!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caVANCOUVER — There were so many positives revealing themselves on the field last Friday at Thunderbird Stadium as part of UBC’s season-saving 23-22 win over the Calgary Dinos.So many, in fact, that we restricted our initial look at the victory from the standpoint of the ‘Birds ability to produce four massive defensive plays […]
A Sunday Read: In the anatomy of UBC’s breathtaking 23-22 win over Calgary, here’s how four defensive plays from the same needle and thread helped stitch a win and save a season on the brink!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caVANCOUVER — So much of the time, the easiest way to gauge the greatness of a football game is to lather in its own gaudy bath of offensive numbers.Yet it seems that the truest gems are often times those games which arise out of nowhere, those wholly organic ones somehow stitched together by […]
UBC Football: Ahead of Friday Homecoming here’s three things to ponder after ‘Birds loss to Regina: How do ‘Birds stop the run? How dangerous is the Derek Engel deep ball? You gotta love Tyson Lewis!
By Howard TsumuraVarsityLetters.caVANCOUVER — It a little crazy to think that when the UBC Thunderbirds come charging onto the field Friday to face the visiting Calgary Dinos (6 p.m., Canada West TV) that they will have reached the midway point of the Canada West football regular season … in just 23 days.In what has seemed […]
Veteran mentorship helps ex-‘Birds O-lineman Giovanni Manu tackle the challenges of climbing the depth chart with Detroit! New NFL season opens Sunday as Manu and the Lions face Green Bay!
By Howard Tsumura(VarsityLetters.com)VANCOUVER — Giovanni Manu came to the Detroit Lions draped in a blank canvas. Now, two NFL training camps later, the 6-foot-7, 350-pound former UBC Thunderbirds standout from Pitt Meadows has put himself in the big picture.“Short story is, if they told me I had to play left tackle against the Green Bay Packers […]