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MBT rides again!!
Hamilton Tiger-Cats to start top CFL draft pick Devin Veresuk against Alouettes
By 3Down Staff -June 26, 2025
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have made two key changes to their starting lineup from last week, giving American running back Treshaun Ward his first career start and promoting Canadian linebacker Devin Veresuk to a starting role.
Ward will play in place of Greg Bell, who has been moved to the one-game injured list due to a calf injury. The five-foot-ten, 190-pound ball-carrier had a nomadic collegiate career, spending time at Florida State, Kansas State, and Boston College. He was named an All-Big 12 honourable mention with the Wildcats in 2023 after rushing for 643 yards, catching 17 passes for 129 yards, and scoring seven touchdowns.
Veresuk has taken over the starting job at middle linebacker following the release of veteran Kyle Wilson. The six-foot-two, 240-pound defender was a standout at the University of Windsor where he recorded 199 total tackles, 15.5 tackles for loss, 11 sacks, two forced fumbles, and one interception over 22 collegiate games with the Lancers, earning two second-team OUA all-star selections.
The 23-year-old native of Windsor, Ont. was the second overall pick in the 2025 CFL Draft and has recorded one special teams tackle over his first two career regular-season games.
The Tiger-Cats have also moved Canadian fullback Daniel Bell to the one-game injured list with an elbow injury and will dress offensive lineman Jakub Szott in his place. Rookie defensive back Kyler Fisher will also make his CFL debut in a depth role.
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats (0-2) will host the Montreal Alouettes (3-0) at Hamilton Stadium on Friday, June 27 with kickoff slated for 7:30 p.m. EDT. The weather forecast calls for a high of 25 degrees with a 60 percent chance of showers and a risk of a thunderstorm.
https://3downnation.com/2025/06/26/hamilton-tiger-cats-to-start-top-cfl-draft-pick-devin-veresuk-against-alouettes/
Montreal Alouettes to start McLeod Bethel-Thompson, rest Davis Alexander in Hamilton
By 3Down Staff -June 26, 2025
The Montreal Alouettes will have a new starting quarterback this week as McLeod Bethel-Thompson has taken the reigns from Davis Alexander, who is out due to a hamstring injury he suffered in last week's win over Edmonton.
Bethel-Thompson joined the Alouettes via trade from the Elks this offseason and dressed for the first three games of the season as Alexander's backup. The 36-year-old native of San Francisco, Calif. saw some late-game action in last week's win, completing six-of-eight pass attempts for 77 yards.
The six-foot-three, 230-pound passer has played 93 career regular-season CFL games, throwing for 17,086 yards, 94 touchdowns, and 60 interceptions as a member of the Toronto Argonauts, Elks, and Alouettes. He was twice named All-East Division with the Boatmen and helped the team win two Grey Cups — one as a backup and one as a starter.
Alexander dominated the Elks in Week 3, completing 20-of-24 passes for 254 yards and three touchdowns with one carry for 11 yards to be named the top performer of the week. Despite the early exit, he improved to 7-0 as a CFL starter, tying Jeff Garcia and Bo Levi Mitchell for the second-best start by a quarterback in league history.
The five-foot-eleven, 210-pound passer he has thrown for 803 yards, five touchdowns, and two interceptions so far this season and rushed six times for 64 yards.
The Alouettes will also be without receiver Austin Mack (hamstring) and defensive tackle Dylan Wynn (foot) against the Tiger-Cats with both players being moved to the one-game injured list. Mack has made 12 catches for 185 yards this season, while Wynn has recorded four defensive tackles and one sack.
Canadian receiver Daniel Oladejo has been elevated from the practice roster and could get some of Mack's reps on offence alongside veteran Régis Cibasu. The Alouettes have also moved two new defensive linemen to the active roster, Kori Roberson Jr. and M.J. Sherman, to help replace Wynn.
The Montreal Alouettes (3-0) will visit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (0-2) at Hamilton Stadium on Friday, June 27 with kickoff slated for 7:30 p.m. EDT. The weather forecast calls for a high of 25 degrees with a 60 percent chance of showers and a risk of a thunderstorm.
https://3downnation.com/2025/06/26/montreal-alouettes-to-start-mcleod-bethel-thompson-sit-davis-alexander-in-hamilton/
Quote from: gobombersgo on June 26, 2025, 05:27:00 PMThe Hamilton Tiger-Cats have made two key changes to their starting lineup from last week, giving American running back Treshaun Ward his first career start and promoting Canadian linebacker Devin Veresuk to a starting role.
According to the chart, Augustine is getting the start, not Ward. And HAM is using T.White as their DNA (again). But they (unlike us) are showing their DIs, and Ward ain't one... so I guess he can come in anytime?
This is setting up to be a weird game. No Alexander means ? for MTL? MBT was never great. Better than Maier or Crum, but not really top-tier.
HAM had the bye, and one would think they'd be upping the level of angst regarding getting their first win. Especially at home, with the dwindling fan base situation.
Can BLM have one of his "MOP" games like he did a couple of times late last season? Strength is there, reads are mostly there. But can he dial in the accuracy, especially regarding distance?
But MTL still has that insanely good D, basically everyone important who won that cup for them.
Can HAM pull off the extreme upset?
pretty meh game so far 1-1 in the second...slow moving wow
got a 4-1 game guys
johnny with a great run!!
jonny hit a wall...litre with a weak sneak
that litre experiment might be over
Great game by Johnny and good to see the Ti-Cats get a win, but shocked how empty the stadium was. Wpg. may be the only team left with a solid fan-base that attends games.
Quote from: The Zipp on June 28, 2025, 12:43:35 AMjonny hit a wall...litre with a weak sneak
that litre experiment might be over
2 problems with RB as SY QB:
1) zero pass threat means everyone on D can go in the box
2) they think more like a RB and get the timing wrong
Both times Litre had a superb little pocket behind Dobson (the planned one) to follow and both times he takes too long, hesitates, and the pocket door collapses. If he just follows the butt immediately he easily gets 2Y on the sneak.
2Q0:16 Uh, what on earth is a "restricted penalty"? Is the ref nuts?
Love the route on the 1st Kenny TD. Cross the entire field AND replace who is the end on the original side. Very new and different scheme. Only works in man coverage though.
Even if they are doing some sort of match coverage, it's really hard to communicate with guys way over on the other side of the field in time. In this case, MTL didn't even try to pass off coverage. I wonder how WPG D would deal with this.
Question: Have we seen Milanovitch run that play before (like back in TOR)? That's some great OC scheming, like what I want to see from Hogan.
LOL, great fake punt by HAM. No one had any idea that was coming.
Before the pass the HAM REC near the target was "blocking downfield before the pass", but since it turned out to be an O/passing play, isn't what the MTL guy did to him (in normal ST jostling) illegal contact on a REC?? (Contact was maintained more than 5Y downfield.)
I guess they decided "meh, just let them play" rather than sort out that can of worms.
I wonder if you can use that to goad a ST "D" to IC your guy and draw a flag? But maybe refs will just ignore it on a ST play. Interesting conundrum.
P.S. Great route and scheme by their ST. We should emulate! No one anywhere expects WPG to run a trick play on ST anymore. It's been entire seasons since we last did.
That right side of the HAM line, the OT and TE, were exactly the same clowns that were offside on the both-teams-offside flag. You screw that one up once, ok, you're a clown. You screw it up twice in 2 Q's, you shouldn't be playing next week.
Your an OT and a TE! It's literally the most important thing you do as a guy on the line.
Did HAM #61 actually get flagged for flopping/faking near the end on the Sankey post-whistle boxing? Or was it for #61's original hit on Sankey?
Is this the first embellishing flag we've seen in a long while? If so, I like it. Keep soccer out of football!
MBT looking exactly like MBT in EDM. He's not horrible, compared to some backup QBs, but he's not even as good as Masoli.
His ability to make quick decisions seems to be impaired. And his accuracy is a bit off. I like his gusto to hurdle though!
His OL was having issues with HAM pass rush too. Maybe MTL's OL isn't as good as we thought? Maybe they fool us because Alexander is the most mobile QB after Ford and he's always a massive run threat? No run threat, not as good because DL can ignore contain.
Augustine head a good game. I never understood why we didn't use him more.
Davis Alexander is down at Maciocia's office this very moment signing the contract with the large salary increase.
It's interesting how quickly a team can fall apart.
Lawler made some outstanding catches of Bo's off target passes. Lawler might get hurt stretching for thiose.
Bo is not very good.
Veresuk..... what a great first game as a starter. " Selected by the Tiger-Cats in the first round, second overall in the 2025 CFL Draft, signed May 14, 2025."
He's from Windsor.
Ticats are blue bombers east.
How surprising is this unexpected Hamilton victory? The league has certainly been gushing all over the Als so far this season but as Mark says, they certainly fell apart last night.
Quote from: J5V on June 28, 2025, 08:42:06 PMHow surprising is this unexpected Hamilton victory? The league has certainly been gushing all over the Als so far this season but as Mark says, they certainly fell apart last night.
davis alexander is the real deal.
Quote from: The Zipp on June 28, 2025, 09:59:20 PMdavis alexander is the real deal.
He might be the best QB in the league, once you include the age factor. Maybe Kelly could give him a run for his money. I know who I'd sign if I had to pick someone for the next 5 years. (Zach would only lose out because of his age.)
Alexander will be the highest-paid QB come his next FA.
He's the perfect CFL QB: can be a true pocket passer, makes great reads, and can easily run wherever/whenever he needs to. Flutie-esque.
Quote from: TecnoGenius on June 28, 2025, 07:13:18 AM2Q0:16 Uh, what on earth is a "restricted penalty"? Is the ref nuts?
Normally the referee will announce "half the distance" meaning that the penalty is restricted to half the distance to the goal line.
The CFL introduced the concept of unrestricted penalties this year, meaning that the full distance will be applied (unless restricted by the 1 yard line).
Quote from: TecnoGenius on June 28, 2025, 08:42:11 AMThat right side of the HAM line, the OT and TE, were exactly the same clowns that were offside on the both-teams-offside flag. You screw that one up once, ok, you're a clown. You screw it up twice in 2 Q's, you shouldn't be playing next week.
Your an OT and a TE! It's literally the most important thing you do as a guy on the line.
On the double offside play you reference it was Montreal on offence. I'm fairly certain that Hamilton's OT & TE weren't on the field 😉
Quote from: Stats Junkie on June 29, 2025, 07:34:38 AMNormally the referee will announce "half the distance" meaning that the penalty is restricted to half the distance to the goal line.
The CFL introduced the concept of unrestricted penalties this year, meaning that the full distance will be applied (unless restricted by the 1 yard line).
Only Major fouls are unrestricted, minor fouls like holding, illegal block, offside remain restricted
Quote from: Stats Junkie on June 29, 2025, 07:34:38 AMNormally the referee will announce "half the distance" meaning that the penalty is restricted to half the distance to the goal line.
The CFL introduced the concept of unrestricted penalties this year, meaning that the full distance will be applied (unless restricted by the 1 yard line).
I knew about the rule change. But this is the first time we've heard this precise wording announced on-field. Thanks for clearing it up. It would have been nice for TSN to explain it to us (and all of Canada) that, eh!
Quote from: Stats Junkie on June 29, 2025, 07:39:18 AMOn the double offside play you reference it was Montreal on offence. I'm fairly certain that Hamilton's OT & TE weren't on the field 😉
Sorry, I was getting confused because I spotted 3 of these shoddy alignments in the game. Another one, against MTL, didn't get flagged even though it was the exact same thing by the same guys. It was the earliest one in the game and I wonder if command sent notice to the refs to tighten up on this, and thus the calls later in the game.
This all stood out to me because normally the OL will line up in a sort of wing, with every hoggie slightly behind his inner hoggie-mate, with the C farthest forward. The TE will sometimes extend to hug the line, but never the OT. And in any event, none should be beyond the ball and clearly have their heads in the neutral zone.
2Q14:56 MTL ball. HAM called for offside, but 1 or 2 guys on the MTL OL (RT+TE?) are also lined up way offside, far in advance of the C (clearly visible on live shot).
Refs missed it.
3Q0:21 MTL ball. The double-offside, it's the same MTL RT+TE clearly lining up offside again, way in advance of the C. Refs spotted it this time.
4Q2:43 HAM ball. The HAM RT+TE make the exact same mistake as MTL guys.