WINNIPEG – It’s must win from here onward for the Elks.
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers completed the home-and-away sweep with a commanding 55-27 victory at Princess Auto Stadium on Friday night. Zach Collaros looked every bit of his former CFL’s Most Outstanding Player self, passing for a season best 432 yards and six touchdowns in the win.
“Hats off to Winnipeg and their club. I mean, they played a heck of a game,” Head Coach Jarious Jackson said. “Zach’s a heck of a quarterback and Brady’s a heck of a running back and those guys got rolling early on us. They jumped out to a 17-point lead early in the first quarter. We battled the second half, but just couldn’t get our traction.”
Former Elks wide receiver Kenny Lawler couldn’t be contained catching eight of the nine targets his way — including several sensational receptions — for 130 yards and two scores.
McLeod Bethel-Thompson completed 19 of 34 attempts for 223 yards and three touchdowns in his return the the starting lineup — dishing out scores to Eugene Lewis, Tevin Jones, and Dillion Mitchell on the night.
Edmonton now finds themselves three points outside the Western Division playoffs with the Saskatchewan Roughriders holding a game in hand against the Ottawa RedBlacks on Saturday night.
The Elks will head back to Commonwealth with a chance to gain some ground on the Riders, hosting the prairie rivals next Saturday Oct. 5 at 5:00 p.m.
RUNNING AWAY WITH ITOne area where the Elks can be positive is the league leading run game once again showed why they pace the CFL in most statistical categories.
Justin Rankin continued to show off his ability to grind out the tough yards, rushing for 109 yards on 14 carries. The rookie has been a revelation for the Elks offence since interim General Manager Geroy Simon brought the 27-year-old back after spending time with the team in training camp. Rankin has rushed for 564 yards in eight games, averaging 7.8 yards per carry with Friday night’s game being his only start of the season.
Edmonton’s offence was able to rebound from an early game lull, scoring 21 points in the second half of the game starting with Bethel-Thompson’s connection with Lewis for his league leading seventh receiving touchdown. Unfortunately, they were not able to overcome a dominant Winnipeg side whose record elevates to a West best 9-6 with their seventh-straight win.
We couldn’t get a first down early in the game, we’ve got to stay on the field in order to help our defense,” Jackson said. “We always preach and talk about playing complimentary football, and last week it was the offense that kind of sputtered a little bit. I think this week the defense kind of sputtered a little bit. We just got to try to find a way to put it all together.”
THEY SAIDHead coach Jarious Jackson on the playoff race and building a Grey Cup contender:
It’s tight now. The Winnipeg’s of this world and Montreal’s, those are the teams that we’re aspiring to be. It didn’t happen overnight for these guys as far as having Grey Cup caliber teams. I feel like this club, we’re on the right trajectory to get to where we need to go. How we finish the game is something that we can build off of for next week.”
Jackson on the play of McLeod Bethel-Thompson:
“He is still our quarterback. I thought he played well. Early on, we’ve got to help him with some of the calls and some of the things that we’re doing offensively. We just have to stay on the field. We kept putting our defense in a situation where we’re two-and-out, two and they were finding a way to get first downs and find the end zone. So we’ve just got to help them out, but I thought he did well.”
McLeod Bethel-Thompson on the team’s performance:
“To come in and have a performance like that is extremely disappointing and embarrassing. It’s not who the heck we are. We had some shots there we didn’t capitalize on. We were two-and-out early in the first half and then they got up and ran away with it. So really frustrating. Can’t even put it into words right now. Just got to execute.”
