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News July 13, 2024

Upon Further Review | CAL 37 WPG 41

Ontaria 'Pokey' Wilson after one of his 13 catches in Friday's win -- photos by Cameron Bartlett

@EdTaitWFC

True story: shortly after Ontaria Wilson was born his grandmother gazed upon him and instantly nicknamed him ‘Pokey’, thinking he resembled a character from the Japanese anime series Pokemon.

The nickname stuck and as he grew up and earned a scholarship to the famed Florida State Seminoles the catchphrase for the Pokemon series — ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em All’ — just made the moniker seem that much fitting for such a gifted receiver.

And then came Friday night in south Winnipeg where over the course of three hours the 24-year-old Ashburn, Ga. product authored his own ‘Welcome to the Canadian Football League’ moment — an eye-popping, jaw-dropping performance that didn’t just scream, ‘Here I am!’ but validated the club’s patience in letting him learn on the job through the first five games.

Consider this: through his first five starts Wilson had eight catches for 85 yards. And in Friday’s thrilling 41-37 win over the Calgary Stampeders he pulled in 13 passes for 201 yards and an acrobatic touchdown while being mauled that has to be a candidate for a top 10 catches list.

Again, just for the record, the 13 catches tied for second-most in Blue Bombers franchise history behind Eugene Goodlow’s epic 15-reception game in 1981 and his 201 yards receiving was the first 200-yard effort by a Winnipeg receiver since Kenny Lawler had seven catches for an even 200 in a win over B.C. last August.

After the game as he sat in his locker stall fielding questions from a group of reporters, Wilson punctuated every succinct answer with a size-large grin.

“I just tried to stay on an even trail — never too high, never too low and when the ball is called for me I tried to take advantage and when it’s not coming to me I’m more than proud to go block for my teammates,” he said.

“I never had any doubts. Never doubted myself.”

We told you of Wilson’s story in training camp and how during his days with the Seminoles he had three different head coaches, six offensive coordinators and three receivers coaches. He flashed enough through that tumultuous turnover to earn a look from the Los Angeles Chargers before coming north to Canada. The club saw something instantly, even if so many were ready to write him off with his lower production to start the season.

“He’s a legit ‘X’. Pokey can play. He can Waggle, he can play on the ball,” said quarterback Zach Collaros, who targeted Wilson 16 times in Friday’s win. “As I’ve been saying, the more reps those guys get the better and better they’re going to get and he’s showing it.

“In the quarterback room we’ve been saying we’ve got to find ways to get this guy the ball. I haven’t seen many guys like him be able to adjust to the football in the air the way he does — Kenny Lawler is probably the best I’ve ever seen at that and we’ve got Nic (Demski) who does the Willy Mays (over the shoulder catch) better than anybody but Ontaria is very smooth as well. He’s a good football player.”

Collaros spoke about the value of reps for a young player like Wilson to learn the timing of the Waggle and the width of the field. And, of course, there’s also the need to develop a chemistry and trust with the quarterback. He said he saw the light go on for Wilson after the first Ottawa game this season and over the last few weeks of practice he has popped out daily.

“I was texting Dalton (Schoen) the other night and said, ‘I think we may have a good one here with Poke’ and he said he agreed,” said Collaros. “I just walked by Dalton and he goes, ‘I was thinking about you the whole game saying we have a legit guy here.’ It’s pretty cool.”

Back to Wilson’s media session Friday to put a ribbon on his bust-out performance. Asked if it was a sign of things to come he grinned, again, and then said:

“Way more great things to come. Definitely.”

ICYMI, our Game Recap is here:

Game Recap | Cal 37 Wpg 41

And what follows is this a deeper dive into the Blue Bombers second win of the season in this week’s edition of UPON FURTHER REVIEW:

IT WAS AN EMOTIONAL BLUE BOMBERS LOCKER ROOM… afterward because the first third of the season has been a grind after the 0-4 start was following by a pair of wins. Three of the four losses were by a combined nine points, including an OT loss in Calgary a few weeks ago, and so to nail down a close one on home soil in another CFL slugfest can be a momentum builder.

Needless to say, but we’ll say it anyway: the difference between 2-4 and 1-5 at this stage of the season could have been massive.

THREE NUMBERS THAT STOOD OUT… after another look at the game’s statistical package, which can be found here:

1 The defensive performance by the Blue Bombers was truly hit and miss. They forced three turnovers — and now have six in the two wins after just four in their four games of the season. Deatrick Nichols was the focal point of two turnovers, forcing a fumble by Peyton Logan that was recovered by Lucky Ogbevoen and then intercepting Jake Maier for a Pick-6.

“I’m happy we got that win, most importantly,” said Nichols. “We’re 2-4 now and we’re trying to roll. We needed that win, a division game and we got it. The Pick-6 is great but now it feels like I helped my team win.

“I finally broke the glass (with the interception for the TD) and all that good stuff but, hey man, we got the win and I promise you that’s all I care about.”

On the flip side, Winnipeg’s defence also surrendered 448 yards against the Stamps. Calgary averaged 8.6 yards per play and a gaudy 9.9 yards on first down.

The Stamps had four runs of 19 yards or more totalling 120 yards and five passes of 20 yards or more adding up to 169 yards. That’s a ton of yards on just nine plays.

“Not good enough,” said veteran defensive tackle Jake Thomas, who had a critical sack with two minutes left in the game. “It was great to see we’re starting to get some takeaways — that’s a big part of what we’ve done here for a lot of years. We’ve just got to clean up a lot of things. I thought the communication was a lot better this week and we had a good week of practice. A lot of it came down to missed tackles. We’ll go back to the drawing board and start making those plays.

“I hadn’t done much the whole game, so it was good to get one,” he added of the sack. “Any time you see the offence go out there and put together a five-six-minute drive to take the lead you’ve got to go out there with some pride and say this is on us now.”

Calgary running back Dedrick Mills finished the night with 131 yards on 15 carries, with 108 yards in the first half.

“We didn’t do much blocking the edge. I thought (Willie Jefferson) just had his way with us,” Stampeders head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson said after the game. “In the second half, we just couldn’t run the ball on first down, and that was what got us in more trouble.”

2 Sergio Castillo had his consecutive field goal streak end at 15 on a third-quarter attempt from 55 yards that sailed wide right and then hit a 38-yarder in the fourth quarter to start a new run. In his streak of 15 straight Castillo — check that, CASH-tillo — set a new club record with a 60-yard make, hit a 57-yard bomb on Friday, two 53 yarders last week against Ottawa and also hit 45 and 49 yarders along the way.

STRANGE, BUT TRUE… AND POTENTIALLY MASSIVE… it’s mid-July and the Blue Bombers and Stamps are done with regular-season matchups, having split the season series. Critical in that is the tiebreaker, which the Blue Bombers have courtesy the late two-point conversion on Demski’s score — another Collaros to Demski hook-up — that put Winnipeg up by four points and gave the point differential by one point.

The risk in the call late was if it had failed, the Stamps could have won the game with a field goal.

“I thought it was smart,” said Collaros of the two-point decision.  “Their offence had played well in the fourth quarter. First and foremost, Osh trusting us to get that there means a lot, obviously. And then the gamesmanship of it all — one, you go up by four and make them have to score a touchdown there at the end. And, two, the point differential — we only play Calgary twice; they won the last one by three, we won (with the convert) by one so we’ve got the breaker there.”

ABOUT THAT CHALLENGE… in the second quarter by O’Shea after a catch by Demski led to an eight-yard gain but had been ruled incomplete by the official. The command centre confirmed the veteran receiver got his hands under the ball to secure the pass, but because the play had been whistled dead, the decision to rule it a catch led to a minus two yard play.

O’Shea was incensed the sideline official had ruled it a catch, but was overruled by another official halfway across the field. That, and the fact the play had been blown dead rather than allowed to continue.

“I probably should have picked it up, but I’m so just pissed off at that point. My emotion got the best of me,” said O’Shea. “I know the result is going to be that we’re not going to get any yards after that, so I should not worry about proving a point. I should just pick the challenge flag up and go to second-and-ten.

“We convert anyway, thank goodness. It’s stupid on my part. I know what’s going happen, they can’t give us any yards. I’m so angry at that point, which is not good.”

AND FINALLY… no one in the locker room was declaring Friday’s win as unlocking some sort of secret formula. But it was a step forward and there is still a ton of highway left to make up ground, especially with next week’s visit to Saskatchewan, a trip to Toronto and then back-to-back, home-and-home with the B.C. Lions.

“That felt like it was a good day,” said Demski, who had seven catches for 60 yards and the go-ahead TD. “We’ve still got some stuff to clean up and we’ll do that but at the end of the day we played a hard physical game. We played four quarters and came out here with a win. We’re pointed in the right direction but we’ve definitely got a ways to go.

“That’s two wins in a row now and we’re starting to play good football. We’ve got to keep getting better and keep this train rolling.”