By Howard Tsumura (VarsityLetters.ca)
VANCOUVER — There comes a point in every great piece of mystery writing where the protagonist is confronted by a sense of the unknown, creating a work of dramatic tension best described in literary terms as a real ‘page turner’.
In a manner of speaking, that’s kind of been the story arc thus far for the 2025 UBC Thunderbirds (1-1).
Over the first three national polls, they’ve gone from unranked to nationally ranked and back to unranked.
Perhaps they’re not quite the team which stunned visiting No. 8 Manitoba 21-9 back on the final Friday of August?
And hopefully, from the perspective of Thunderbirds fans, not the team which took over the No. 8 spot yet struggled to tread water in last Friday’s 51-14 drubbing at the hands of the host, No. 7 Saskatchewan Huskies (2-0).
So ahead of Friday’s 6 p.m. Thunderbird Stadium clash against the Canada West’s top offensive team, the No. 6 Regina Rams (2-0), the mystery-themed plot development continues to remain a work in progress for the home team.
And what makes it such a ‘page turner’ of sorts?
Throughout the past decade under head coach Blake Nill, the Thunderbirds have been as good or better than any program in the country when it comes to difficult task of transitioning from one class of graduating fourth- and fifth-year seniors to that all-elusive next ascendant group.
Yet it’s not an exact science.
What happens when, over the course of one off-season, you part ways with your starting quarterback (Garrett Rooker), your top receiver (Sam Davenport), your top running back (Isaiah Knight), your top cornerback (Jerrell Cummings) and your top two linebackers (Jaxon Ciraolo-Brown, Derek Townsend) among others?
And all of this a season removed from losing your top two tackles (Theo Benedet, Giovanni Manu) both of whom now play in the NFL?
In the case of UBC, it’s been the primary reason that the team’s identity is yet to be determined.
It’s why the ‘hot’ can be an emotion-filled, shot-out-of-a-cannon tsunami, the likes of which we saw in the ‘Birds win over Manitoba.
And it’s also why the ‘cold’ can be a keep-it-real reveal of all that is not yet fully realized at so many spots on the roster… something we saw from the opening kickoff on Friday at the one place in this conference — Saskatoon’s Griffiths Stadium — that can be called its ultimate crucible.
It’s somewhere in the middle of those extremes, in that grey chunk of percolating real estate, where these ‘Birds currently huddle.
And while it’s a reality that Nill cannot deny, it’s also one that the veteran head coach knows comes with navigating the territory between promise and realization.
Case in point?
UBC’s defensive backfield has to be one of the youngest fielded in the program’s recent history.
In fact if it wasn’t for the 11th hour return of fifth-year standout Jason Soriano, 23, at one of the halfback spots, then fellow defensive half Darrien Brown, at age 20, could well have been it’s only starter not still a teenager.
Free safety Tyson Lewis and corner Niko Kanagawa are both 19 and corner Jehovany Batalonga is the baby of the bunch at 18.
Lewis (five), Kanagawa (four) and Batalonga (two) have a combined 11 games of university football experience.
“They are all basically rookies, but we’re not using that as an excuse because they are playing well at times,” stated Nill. “But the inconsistency is something that we as coaches have to find a way to make them more consistent, help them to sustain better.”
And that same theme is running through the UBC defensive line, which on Friday was without the services of injured frontliners Aaron Parker and Taaj Jhooty.
Deacon Sterna and Malcolm Fraser are both still 19, and first-year Thierry Moro is seeing his snap counts continue to rise at age 18.
Until Parker and Jhooty return, Clark Leonard is the elder of the main rotation group at age 22, one which also includes 20-year-old Braden Skaarup.
Sterna has been impossible to miss over the early part of his career, yet there was no question that the Saskatchewan offensive line made it tough for he and everyone else on the UBC front to be at their best.
“He has to learn to be at his best when he is challenged the most,” Nill said when asked about Sterna and his vast potential. “But that’s the way it is for every kid.
“Ask Giovanni Manu what his game was like when he first started. Ask Theo Benedet what his game was like when he first started. Ask them if they were resilient right from the start. The answer is ‘No’. But over the years they learned to be resilient, they learned to overcome difficulties. It’s an ongoing process and that is not unique to UBC football.”
And speaking of the team’s offensive line, left tackle Caleb Cunningham and right guard Axel Statton, each just 19 years of age, are now in their second straight season as starters. And then there is Drew Viotto, the first year quarterback who has moved into the starter’s role this season following two years of inactivity at the NCAA Division 1 level at Minnesota and Eastern Michigan.
The toughest part last Friday for Nill, whose team has still not found a way to invigorate its run game, and got another reminder of what’s at stake when you don’t overcome the adversity that accompanies those handful of calls that each game don’t go your way?
“The thing that is a bitter pill for me to swallow is that one of my teams allowed the score to escalate,” he said. “We clearly were not the better team on the field Friday night, but we aren’t a team that should give up 50 points either. We allowed that score to escalate.”
The sum total of all that has transpired since the Thunderbirds left Griffiths Stadium with the stinging feeling that comes from suffering a 37-point loss in a battle between two nationally-ranked teams?
A story arc, which as we mentioned off the top, has now developed its own kind of dramatic tension.
The foundation of the UBC roster is its core of veteran players, yet without more breakout moments from its rising class of youth, gaining separation in an always-competitive Canada West will prove difficult if not impossible.
So is Friday night the time when the cradles are abandoned and the team’s collective core of youth grabs hold of its future, turning it into present-day reality?
Or will the plot twist and turn in ways that refuse easy answers and require further reading?
UBC football fans can tell you the ending they want their team to write, but it’s the act of watching to see how it all turns out, dramatic tension and all, that makes the chapter-by-chapter fortunes of this 2025 edition of the Blue-and-Gold such a page turner.
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