Third season’s a charm

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This article was published 07/06/2013 (4499 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s officially the start of his third CFL season, but Winnipeg Blue Bombers slotback Kito Poblah still has that new-car smell..

After being the first pick of the league’s 2011 supplemental draft, the 25-year-old from Montreal via Central Michigan University saw only three games at wide receiver as the majority of his season was scuttled by injuries.

In 2012, Poblah was a regular at wideout for 14 games. He missed a week, then finished the season in a spot, slotback, where Bombers head coach Tim Burke has determined he’ll begin 2013.

“I’m really excited for this year,” Poblah said Thursday at Investors Group Field. “I feel the coaches know best… where they can position me. That’s what I’m going with, having faith in the coach’s decision and having fun with it.”

The setback of his first season left him feeling like a rookie in 2012, Poblah said.

“I feel like the year, I missed. Then coming back last year, it was a whole, entire year off of football, basically… it took me a while to get my feet under me,” he said. “I felt I was getting better as the season started getting toward the end.

“This year, especially with that full year under my belt, it’s more experience.”

Things are a little different on the inside, at the slotback spot.

“One thing’s for sure, it’s a lot more conditioning,” Poblah said. “It’s a lot more running. I had to actually really put my mind in focus and understand there’s going to be a lot of heavy breathing, however, I’ve got to get through it.

“Mentally, I got prepared. Even this off-season, I was doing a lot of conditioning.”

Burke said some players are just more suited to being in motion — he calls it “the waggle” — and some are not.

‘There are certain guys that play better with the waggle — the motion — and certain guys who do better without that waggle. Kito, we’ve discovered last year, that he did better with the waggle and I think he played better at the end of the year than he did early in the year’

— head coach Tim Burke

“There are certain guys that play better with the waggle — the motion — and certain guys who do better without that waggle,” Burke said Thursday. “Kito, we’ve discovered last year, that he did better with the waggle and I think he played better at the end of the year than he did early in the year.

“So we kept him in that spot. Clarence Denmark, we’ve moved him from a slot receiver to the wide receiver position on the line and he’s been better there. He just feels more comfortable starting with no waggle and then releasing from there.”

Now that Poblah’s in a more comfortable position, the waggle needs to translate to more dependability and impact, Burke said.

“He’s got to be more consistent,” the coach said. “When he moved inside (last year), he became a little more consistent… He, along with a lot of other players, we’d like them to step up and be better than what they were last year because we were 6-12 last year… I just think that a lot of guys have to step up their game.

“Certainly, the third year a guy’s in the league, you’d like to see him blossom at that point.”

That kind of improvement is a must for the Bombers if they hope to escape the shame of being the league’s lowest-scoring team.

Poblah said improving every day — something Burke has spoken about on several occasions at training camp — is front and centre for him.

“I really love that philosophy,” Poblah said. “Both my coaches in college, Brian Kelly, who’s at Notre Dame and coach (Butch) Jones, who’s at Tennessee now, they were exactly the same.

“Every day, you’ve got to be better than you were yesterday. Whatever you’re working on. And I believe that’s the way to get better, then everything else will take care of itself.

I feel like in the position I’m playing now, in the quick games, small increments in the game to get the ball in my hands and develop plays that are supposed to be for low yardage, to make those bigger plays, that’s my style.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca