[OzSome]

GAME TIME : Friday, October 18th, 7PM MDT at Commonwealth Stadium
TELEVISED : TSN and NBCSN(delayed)

Battle of Alberta - Part 3 tonight at Commonwealth Stadium. Calgary Stampeders(12-3) will have a chance to clinch at least a home playoff date if they win against the Eskimos tonight. They can also clinch first place in the West and will host the Western Final if Calgary win tonight and Saskatchewan lose the game vs BC Lions on Saturday. Edmonton Eskimos(3-12) on the other hand was already eliminated from post-season game after their lost last week.
Calgary won both the home-and-home series against the Eskimos on Labour Day Classic series. They dominated the first game at McMahon Stadium only to let the Eskimos come back and almost stole a win from them 37-34. Calgary did not give the Eskimos a chance on the second game 22-12.

OFFENSE:

QB Kevin Glenn was good in the first half last week vs the BC Lions. Unfortunately he and the rest of the offense couldn't finish the good drives 3-4 times and only scored field goals on the red zone. On the second half, he was average and threw in an INT that almost gave the Lions a win. Glenn ended up with 22 completions on 37 attempts for 259 yards and threw 2 TD passes but was intercepted once. Glenn left the Labour Day game due to injury and was replaced by Bo Levi Mitchell.

RB Jon Cornish. Debate is who is better RB Cornish or Kory Sheets? Stampeders fans argument is Cornish is better as he is now the rushing leader in the CFL ahead by 137 yards over 2nd place Kory Sheets. Cornish also rushed the ball less than Sheets and have a better yards average per carries. Cornish won the weekly awards almost every week. Riders fans will argue that Sheets missed 3 games and was leading the league when he went down. Cornish by the way missed one game this season due to injury.
Cornish rushed 15 times vs BC Lions for 130 yards, 1 TD and also caught the ball for 35 yards. His stats against the Eskimos in 2 games : 31 for 191 yards and no rushing TD in 2 games. Jon Cornish won the Canadian Player of the Week for I can't remember how many times now this season. He is only 352 rushing yards to break Willie Burden's record.

WR Marquay McDaniel. Glenn's favorite target caught 6 passes last week for 187 yards and 1 TD. WR Maurice Price caught 6 passes last week for 68 yards but against Edmonton this season, he caught 10 passes for 208 yards and hauled in 3 TD passes in 2 games.

WR Jeff Fuller, 6'4" standout from Texas A&M will replace WR Joe West in the lineup tonight. West went down with the shoulder injury early in the game last week vs BC.

Stampeders scored the most points per game in the CFL for 32.4 points average and they are playing against one of the worst team in allowing the opponents 28.2 points per game in the CFL. Calgary also scored the most TDs in the CFL with 47 while Eskimos D allowed 41 TDs one of the worst as well. In Rushing Yards per game, Calgary is the best while Eskimos defense is 2nd worst team in rushing yards(135.1 yards) allowed. Passing yards, Stamps is in the middle of the pack while Eskimos is 2nd best in defending against pass. Stamps offensive line only allowed 30 QB sacks all season, the best in the league while Eskimos D had 36 QB sacks 6th in the league.

DEFENSE :

Pretty quiet night against BC Lions for the Front Seven last week. It doesn't mean they were awful but just didn't see a lot of pass rushes against QB Thomas DeMarco like they normally do every game. DT Junior Turner will be back in the lineup after sitting out a few weeks due to injury. DT Justin Phillips will play his 100th game tonight. DE Charleston Hughes did not add any QB sacks vs BC but I think he is due to add some more against Edmonton. The two games they played the Eskimos this season, Hughes had 6 tackles and 5 sacks.

Secondary were torched by DeMarco last week. B Brandon Smith had his worst game vs BC who got beat by R Nik Taylor and WR Shawn Gore in the first half. DB Chris Randle also had a bad game early in the game but he bounced back at the end by hauling an INT and returned it for a TD. That TD int pretty much won the game for the Stampeders. Both Front Seven and Secondaries are looking for a bounced back game tonight for sure.

Stamps Defense best in the league in QB sacks with 48 vs Eskimos OLine 3rd in league in allowing the most QB sacks per game with also 48. Eskimos Offense are also one of the worst team in Points per game and TDs scored vs Stamps who is 2nd best in the league in allowing the least points per game and 3rd best in the least TD scored allowed. Stampeders defense is 3rd best in allowing least amount of passing yards and 5th best in allowing least rushing yards per game vs Eskimos offense who is 3rd best in throwing the ball to receivers and 3rd best rushing team in the CFL.

SPECIAL TEAM :

Looks like KR Clifton "Peanut" Smith will not dress up tonight after having a great first CFL game last week. Smith returned for 188 yards vs BC and he caught a 6 yards pass from Kevin Glenn for a TD. KR Larry Taylor will be back in the lineup after sitting out last game due to import/non-import ratio technicality. With one non-import who happens to be a RB Matt Walter sat out due to concussion last game, Stamps activated RB/KR Clifton Smith who also played as Cornish backup, they have to sit out one of the import player. It's your turn Larry Taylor.

Punter Rob Maver punted the ball 5 times vs BC for 245 yards and an average of 49 yards per punt. That stat won him the Special Team Player of Week.

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Now that the Eskimos season pretty much over, i wonder if Kavis Read will keep QB Mike Reilly the whole game. Mike Reilly as we all know it had a concussion problem so I think it is pretty stupid to keep absorbing some punishments now that their playoff hopes is dead. Does Kavis Read does even cared since he is going to lose his job at the end of the season anyways. Or will he last until the end of the season?

I wonder how will the new guy WR Jeff Fuller will do on this game. The WR roller coaster is at it again after the Joe West injury last week. I hope this guy will play a lot better than the previous WR that Stamps tried so far this season.

GO STAMPS GO!!!!