By Howard Tsumura (VarsityLetters.ca)
VANCOUVER — It’s not that Blake Nill misunderstood the question.
More than that, it’s all part-and-parcel of the DNA of post-game coach speak to remain in the moment. You know, the micro… not the macro.
Yet, in the aftermath of a Canada West season-opening 21-9 victory over the No. 8 Manitoba Bisons here Thursday night at Thunderbird Stadium, it was by the tone of relief in the voice of UBC’s head coach that his longtime translators could appreciate the gravity of the victory.
“If we would have lost this game here today, going into Sask, such a tough place to win, at 0-1 and the potential to go 0-2, and there are no easy games, all of a sudden everything starts to weigh you down,” he explained, already looking ahead to a week from today, and his team’s Friday night (6 p.m.) clash in Saskatoon against the Huskies. “I am excited about going to Sask.”
Now, how is all of that as much or more about a macro-lens view of UBC’s 2025 season?
Quite simply put, Friday’s opener resembled just one of a handful of the 93 games Nill has coached on the west coast since coming west from Calgary in 2015.
We’re talking here about chapter-building, season-opening games. Or more precisely, games where on rosters rife with change, it becomes clear that for at least the next season or two ahead, the theme is going to be centred around either overcoming struggle or streamlining stride at the starting quarterback position.
And regardless of the internal machinations currently at play at said position, and amidst all of the other moving parts which accompany the dress-rehearsal aspects of a season opener, it’s clear that UBC has not only found that player in first-year pivot Drew Viotto, but has a 1-2 punch with fifth-year Derek Engel that should be the envy of the nation. You either see it as a futurist or a fatalist, and that is all left to personal choice.
So with all of that said, here’s my top offensive and my top defensive takeaways from Friday’s opener, staged in front of another sell-out plus crowd on the Point Grey campus.
I think you know where we’re going to start.
1 COLD, HARD QUARTERBACK FACTS
Michael O’Connor’s UBC debut was an 18-for-32 performance for 292 yards with two TD passes and a pick back on Aug. 29, 2015.
It was also Nill’s debut with the team as head coach, and in the end the Birds had gone on the road to defeat perennial national power Laval 41-16 in Quebec City. A Vanier Cup national title followed that year.
Garrett Rooker’s Thunderbirds debut back on Sept. 25 of 2021 was a 32-of-45 outing in which he accumulated 372 yards through the air with two TD passes and a pick. It also came on the road, in a 44-19 loss in Edmonton to the Alberta Golden Bears.
On Friday, Viotto, whom Nill tabbed coming out of camp as the starter over Engel, went 20-of-29 for 230 yards for two touchdowns and no picks.
These three highlighted performances can’t be viewed in a vacuum, but they can be gauged by the gut reaction they elicit, and in all three cases, they produce that all-too-fleeting feeling of the sweet spot in time when a quarterback stands and delivers with surety.
For Viotto, who was pulled late in the third quarter with cramps, there were more than enough of those moments to surmise that his future is in blue and gold seems assured.
His look at a listed 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds?
To these eyes it’s current Hamilton Tiger Cats’ linebacker Ryan Baker, the North Vancouver-Windsor phenom who came to the Birds as a quarterback in 2018 and that season sat on the depth chart behind the fourth-year O’Connor, who was on his way to becoming the school’s all-time passing leader in his final season.
Viotto?
He’s got O’Connor’s formidable arm strength, and he’s got the rough-and-tumble body of Baker who eventually found his calling, to universal acclaim, in the heart of the UBC defences as one of the nation’s elite linebackers.
Both of Viotto’s TD passes were snared by returning fifth-year receiver Edgerrin Williams-Hernandez, including Viotto’s first scoring strike, a 12-yard offering on second-and-10 in which he split two Bisons and found Williams with precision at the back of the end zone.
And when Viotto took off on a nine-yard carry in the first quarter, his first running play as a T-Bird, all you needed to remember was the way he lowered his shoulder at the end of the play and drilled his would-be-tackler, Manitoba defensive end Jerome Fouillard.
Yet the UBC offence came out of the third quarter mired in the offensive doldrums that come without complete identity and assurance in the run game, thus opening the door for the Bisons’ to make a run of their own behind the sandlot expertise of its fifth-year general Jackson Tachinski, a poster boy for everything that is great about the best a Canada West quarterback has to offer.
Manitoba eventually pulled to within 14-9 six minutes into the fourth quarter and by that stage, they had all of the game’s momentum.
Then Engel did just what he had quietly done for four years as Rooker’s always-ready understudy… he came off the sideline, commanded the huddle and delivered, and not behind big numbers, but by his own brand and mix of ham-and-eggs smarts.
And make no mistake about it, while Trey Montour’s pugnacious goal-line focus to haul in Engel’s high-arcing four-yard touchdown pass was UBC’s most inspired play of the night, it was — with 4:58 remaining — the drive the hometowners had to have to divert opening-night disaster.
Afterwards, Nill addressed his quarterbacks and like the veteran head coach he is, could not deny that amidst the challenging team dynamic that played itself out over camp for QB-1, what has emerged is a situation that has made his charges not only stronger, but deeper at the game’s most pivotal position.
“…you still gotta coach and you sometimes have to make tough decisions, like who is going to be your starting quarterback here,” said Nill. “There are always going to be upset players, upset locker rooms, but you still got to make what you think is the best (decision) and we did that, and the young guy didn’t play too bad either, and he is just a young guy.”
Clearly Viotto lived up to his advance billing, while at the time, Engel never skipped a beat.
“I was just doing my thing,” said Engel after putting together a modest 3-of-5 effort for 35 yards while rushing for another four times for another 29 yards. “Obviously thinking it’s your job and it not being, it was a tough pill to swallow. But I mean, I am about the team so I was just glad I could help the team win today.”
Added Nill: “It can be a two quarterback thing and we’d be foolish not to explore that idea because you still gotta build for the future. You have to make sure because an injury could happen or whatever. I am really happy for Derek. We get along great.”
All of which is to say that you can dissect the QB room a thousand different ways if you want, but nothing makes an entire team stronger than one its veterans making the kind of heartfelt, definitive statement that Engel did Friday.
With Viotto and Engel, UBC’s situation at quarterback looks enviable. But it’s Nill’s job to maintain that equilibrium in the face of a season barely underway.
2 A LEGION OF BOOM, OR SHOULD THAT BE DOOM?
A learned colleague, UBC’s freshly-minted play-by-play announcer Len Catling, made a spot-on observation about two hours before game time Friday as we watched the home team get some pre-game reps on the field.
To paraphrase Catling, the sight of UBC’s 6-foot-4, 240 pound second-year rush end Deacon Sterna going through the rituals of his pre-game prep sans t-shirt is enough to make any opposition offence add that one extra, potentially game-changing second of concern to their collective pre-game process.
Last season, in our final season together as a broadcast tandem (yes, yours truly has stepped away from the football broadcast booth this season with the knowledge that Catling will excel alongside new analyst Gord Randall), Catling nicknamed Deacon Sterna ‘The Deacon of Doom’, an all-timer which on Friday was about as apt as they come.
Sterna looked incredible at times, a little like Aidan Hutchinson for the Detroit Lions during his own early-career snaps where his ability to create consistent pressure was a mere fraction of a second off of potential 4-5 sack efforts. This kid looks great already, but he’s only just begun and his true breakthrough seems imminent.
On Friday, Sterna managed one sack and was so close on two or three others. He finished with five tackles, including two for a loss of yards, and he capped it with an eagle-eyed 23-yard interception return off a deflected pass in the second quarter that carried the Birds into halftime with a 14-0 lead.
Even better?
There were so many great performances from the UBC front seven that you lost count, and that’s what happens when you hold a team with the offensive potential of the Bisons to just nine points the entire night.
There was former New West Hyack Kinsale Phillip, making his B.C. return after four seasons with the struggling Varsity Blues at the U of Toronto, leading the way from his spot in the linebacking core with nine tackles, including six solo stops, with one pass break-up.
Ben Sangmuah, the senior SAM linebacker lived up to his preseason billing and more with six tackles, five of which were solo.
“It’s amazing to be around that kind of talent, with Deacon and Benji, they are exceptional, amazing athletes and they lift us in so many ways,” said Phillip, a former quarterback-turned-linebacker who like Viotto, mirrors the Ti-Cats’ Baker in so many ways.
And while they, along with the likes of Isaiah Cooper, Clark Leonard (who created a key fumble with a punch-out move) and Chase Henning, seemed to cast an instant identity to the front seven, the impression you had walking out of the stadium was again eye-test based: If UBC’s defence tackles in the open field with the same kind of ferocity and efficiency it did Friday, good things will happen.
“Yeah, because we have been working on that since spring camp and I am very happy with the defence,” said Nill.
Jason Soriano, the former Vancouver College star back for his fifth season, struck a blow for the secondary with a pair of ferocious open-field stops.
His fellow halfback partner Darrien Brown, a second-year out of Football North, kept his focus and made a huge end-zone interception with just over two minutes left to put the game away.
And then there was second-year Tyson Lewis adding to the efforts of the back end, scooping up the fumble created by Leonard inside his team’s own 10 yard line.
“It was a tremendous job by coach Noah Cantor,” said Nill of Noah Cantor, the former B.C. Lion and four-time Grey Cup champ, who was making his debut as defensive coordinator, while also giving kudos to defensive assistants like Shomari Williams, Wayne Harris and Dom Termansen.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Ran out of time to talk about some other vital areas of the team but you know it’s a long season.
Keep an eye out for some words on former UBC left tackle Gio Manu, who was on hand for Friday’s game and was inundated by the media. The patience and class the big man from Pitt Meadows showed upon his return during a brief break in action following Tuesday cutdowns as great to see. Manu and his Detroit Lions open their season a week Sunday against the Green Bay Packers.
UBC will be at Saskatchewan this coming Friday, then return home for two straight against Regina (Sept. 12), and then Calgary (Sept. 19) as the team plays three of its first four games at home.
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