Bisons QB a leader among leaders

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This article was published 09/09/2021 (1674 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a bold statement by Brian Dobie, but you can hear the sincerity in his voice.

He’s coached some solid quarterbacks at the University of Manitoba since taking the reins in 1996 — most notably Shane Munson, John Mackie, Jordan Yantz and Theo Deezar. But in terms of being a leader, it’s Dobie’s current quarterback, Des Catellier, who stands out above the rest.

“We can debate within our coach’s room who the best quarterback that we’ve ever had is, or who had the best arm, or who made the least amount of mistakes. But there is no one who was more of an absolute leader than Des Catellier… No one’s done what this kid has done,” Dobie told the Free Press on Thursday.

The Bisons opened their training camp Aug. 28 and are preparing to knock the rust off Sept. 18 in Saskatoon in an exhibition game against the Saskatchewan Huskies. The real test comes Sept. 25 at IG Field when they host the Regina Rams in the season opener.

It’ll be their first taste of live action since Nov. 2, 2019 when they lost a 47-46 heartbreaker in the Hardy Cup semifinal to the Calgary Dinos who went on to win the national title. Even though there haven’t been any games since then as the pandemic forced the 2020 season to get axed, Catellier hasn’t stopped working.

It started in the winter term in 2020, right before COVID-19 hit. Catellier opted to take all online courses so he could head out to B.C. on his own dime and train with Rob Williams, a kinesiologist and movement coach who has worked with U Sports, CFL and NFL talent. Williams helped Catellier develop a new throwing motion that utilizes his core and hips more as opposed to putting all the stress on his arm. Shortly after Catellier returned to Winnipeg, things began to lock down. A few months later, the quarterback spearheaded a leadership group featuring a few veterans on the team. Eventually Catellier reached out to Dobie to get him involved to make it more of an official thing.

“So, we, and by we, I really mean Des, created this leadership group. It’s not like we haven’t had leadership groups before, but not like this one. I can not tell you how many meetings this group had. It was a small group of guys engineered by Des. We come into meetings and sometimes I’d bring some topics in, but mostly it was them, mainly (Des),” Dobie said.

“It was all about our culture. It was all about improving this and improving that, just fine tuning things. It wasn’t about X’s and O’s, it wasn’t about offence, it was everything else but that. We haven’t stopped. That’s gone on for 10 months. So for that group, we’ve slowly brought more leaders into it and it’s turned into leaders teaching (younger) leaders how to be leaders.”

It’s a good thing for the Herd that Catellier is helping groom future leaders as this will be the Calgary native’s fifth and final year behind centre.

“I understand that a part of this team’s success rides on my shoulders. I accept that pressure or responsibility or whatever you want to call it. I thrive on that,” said the senior pivot.

“This is my last year with the Bisons and the whole time I’ve been here, this core group of guys that are all around me have talked about one thing: winning a national championship. I think this core group is ready to make a run this year.”

Luckily for Catellier, who threw for 1,743 yards, nine touchdowns and eight interceptions in eight games in 2019, he’s surrounded by playmakers. He’ll have a pair of proven running backs at his disposal in Michael Ritchott and Victor St. Pierre-Laviolette. Catellier will also have options at receiver as the Herd added former NCAA Div. II all-star Gavin Cobb from Simon Fraser University to a group that already features standouts in Macho Bockru and Abdul-Karim Gassama.

Catellier thinks this is the most depth the team has had on offence in his tenure.

“We’ve had some really good receivers in this program before, but I don’t think you could’ve went down the line and look at your receivers 1-12 and say they could all be starting for us or could be starting somewhere else in the country… We have that this year,” he said.

However, there’s one dark cloud currently hovering over Catellier and his troops — the offensive line. The Bisons have lost their top seven offensive lineman during the pandemic for a variety of reasons. Dobie has brought in some promising recruits at the position from the junior ranks in Joel Cardinal (a Prairie Football Conference all-star with the Edmonton Huskies) and Ryder Klisowsky (a national champion with the Saskatoon Hilltops and their lineman of the year award winner), but they will have a group with zero experience at the U Sports level.

“I’ve never experienced losing an entire unit at once… But we’ve experienced it this year with our offensive line. The old saying is football is won and lost on the line of scrimmage, so without a doubt, it’s our biggest challenge,” Dobie said.

If Catellier is going to have the sendoff to his career that he desires, this team is going to need to find some diamonds in the rough on the O-line.

“I think when you go into it, it’s a bit concerning, but as camp goes on, we’ve been able to see that we do have some dudes that can play O-line at this level,” Catellier said.

“The concern level has gone down through camp after seeing these guys. We’ve got some big guys, some mean guys, and I trust them up there.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @TaylorAllen31