Labour Day weekend perfect for Bombers QB Collaros

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This article was published 31/08/2023 (779 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Labour Day tends to bring out the best in Blue Bombers quarterback Zach Collaros.

Collaros is 6-0 during the September long weekend as he was 3-0 during his stint with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, 1-0 with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and 2-0 since joining the Blue and Gold.

“He’s won a lot of games on a lot of weekends. Some Thursdays, some Sundays,” said head coach Mike O’Shea with a sly grin after Thursday’s practice at IG Field. “He’s a very good football player.”

The Bombers have won their last eight meetings against Saskatchewan and it’s no coincidence the streak began after the Toronto Argonauts sent Collaros to Winnipeg at the 2019 trade deadline.

“Zach’s the lucky charm, I guess,” said right guard Patrick Neufeld. “I don’t think it’s much luck, though. It’s his preparation, his leadership. When he’s in the huddle, and it’s however many fans there are against the 12 of us on offence, you have total faith in what Zach does on the field and in the huddle.”

Quiet stretch for Lawler

Bombers receiver Kenny Lawler exploded for 200 yards on eight catches and a touchdown in Week 9 vs. the visiting B.C. Lions.

In the three games since then, Lawler has been held to six grabs for 134 yards and two scores. That’s nothing to scoff at, but that’s the type of stat line you expect from the 29-year-old from California on a weekly basis.

“Defences are starting to take away certain things. The looks to give me the ball are going to become more difficult because they’re doing so much to take me away,” said Lawler.

“That just means our other players have to eat. If they’re doing a lot to take me away, someone has a one-on-one somewhere. They’ve just been having good game plans, but I’m a dude that’s able to impact the game even if I don’t get the ball.”

Fond memories of coach Stubler

Former CFL coach Rich Stubler, who was a part of five Grey Cup-winning teams, died on Sunday at the age of 74.

The defensive guru coached Mike O’Shea from 2003-08 when the Bombers head coach played linebacker for the Toronto Argonauts.

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“He was a great defensive mind. He taught us a lot about the game of football, but he also gave us a tremendous amount of ownership and taught us that,” said O’Shea.

“Another side of that is we had an unbelievable amount of fun in that room. There were all sorts of things going on every week… There were just great memories from being in that room and we had a lot of fun on our walkthrough days. We had a lot of competitive games that weren’t football while we were getting through our walkthrough partly because we played so much match coverage that we didn’t really need to practice a lot of other stuff. So, we had a lot of free time on our hands. When our offence is going through a 40-minute walkthrough, we had time to play kickball, bat ball, frisbee, dodgeball, snowball fights, so, it was a lot of fun and always competitive. There was always a draft so teams were never the same.”

Stubler’s final season in the CFL was as an assistant with Toronto in 2021. He was still coaching at the time of his passing as he was a defensive co-ordinator at Florida prep school Clearwater Academy International.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31

Taylor Allen
Reporter

Taylor Allen is a sports reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. Taylor was the Vince Leah intern in the Free Press newsroom twice while earning his joint communications degree/diploma at the University of Winnipeg and Red River College Polytechnic. He signed on full-time in 2019 and mainly covers the Blue Bombers, curling, and basketball. Read more about Taylor.

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