OTTAWA — The Ottawa Redblacks finally had reason to celebrate following a 26-7 win over the Edmonton Elks on Friday night.
Not only did Ottawa pick up its first win of the season, but it was the first home win in 640 days. The last win at TD Place was also against the Elks — a 34-24 victory on Sept. 28, 2021.
“Psychologically this definitely takes some of the pressure off,” said Ottawa fullback Marco Dubois. “I also think it sends a message to other teams that it’s not just going to be easy when you come to Ottawa. We can compete every week.”
Quarterback Tyrie Adams deserves a lot of credit for his performance. The 26-year-old was making his first CFL start and finished the game 14 for 20 for 185 yards and one touchdown. He also had 31 yards rushing.
“Forget anything about me, I’m just ecstatic about getting this win for this team, for this organization and for these fans,” said Adams. “I obviously didn’t do it by myself. Hats off to the defence, hats off to the offensive lineman, hats off to the running back and hats off to everybody.”
It might be easy for Adams to give credit to others, but the young QB played with poise and confidence and set the tone for the team.
During the course of the week head coach Bob Dyce had talked of the importance of minimizing turnovers and Adams got the message loud and clear.
“He did a good job with regards to that,” said Dyce. “He didn’t force the ball when he didn’t have to. He hit the check downs underneath and let his playmakers make the plays and then he made plays with his legs.”
Edmonton also gave the ball to a young QB making his first CFL start, but Jarret Doege didn’t fare quite as well.
He finished the game 19 for 33 for 214 yards and one touchdown, but was picked off three times and sacked on four occasions in the loss.
“There’s nothing you can do but go back to work,” said Doege. “I’m just going to have to study harder and just prepare harder and maybe do some extra walk through to get us rolling faster in the first half.”
With the win, Ottawa improves to 1-2-0 on the season while Edmonton falls to 0-4-0.
“I don’t think anybody would have predicted we’d be 0-4 right now,” said Elks head coach Chris Jones. “I feel strongly that we’ve got good players and we’ve got to figure it out and try to do things that they do well.”
Ottawa got off to a solid start and never looked back.
The Redblacks opened the scoring after taking advantage of defensive pass interference on Siaosi Mariner and turned it into a 35-yard field goal 10 minutes into the game.
Just over one minute later Ottawa took a 10-0 lead when Dubois took an Adams pass 54 yards for the first offensive TD of the season.
“We’ve rarely played with a lead the last few years so having that killer instinct was important,” said Dubois. “I think we had that (Friday) and it was important to play with that mindset right to the very end because in the CFL we all know things can come down to the wire.”
A pair of 51 and 15-yard field goals by Lewis Ward in the second quarter completed the Redblacks’ scoring in the opening half to take a 16-0 lead.
The Elks got on the board in the third quarter on a drive that started with an unfortunate punt by Richie Leone that allowed Edmonton to start its drive from midfield.
Five plays later Doege connected with Maurice Ffrench for a three-yard TD pass. Edmonton’s two-point conversion attempt failed leaving it trailing 16-6 late in the third quarter. Jake Julien picked up a single for the Elks with a deep punt to round out the scoring.
Ward added a 41-yard field goal to make it 19-6 in the opening minute of the fourth quarter and later added a second offensive touchdown when Demontre Tuggle ran the ball in nine yards for his first career TD. Adams made a solid block on the play as the Redblacks took a 26-7 lead.
Ottawa improved its running game significantly, finishing with 208 yards with Tuggle leading the way with 126.
“We were feeling it,” said Tuggle. “The running backs as a whole, we were challenging ourselves during the bye week of how could we be better, how can we become more of a spark for the offence and we really took that personally.”
Edmonton is back in action next Thursday against Saskatchewan, while Ottawa heads to Hamilton to take on the Tiger-Cats next Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 30, 2023.
Lisa Wallace, The Canadian Press
