[troutman]

Great is not enough


http://www.lfpress.com/2013/11/17/great-is-not-enough

Most of the country’s university football fans know by now that the Mustangs went west again and had their lunch handed to them, again, by a west-conference team.

This time it was the Calgary Dinos who embarrassed the Ontario champs 44-3, winning the Mitchell Bowl on a cold, snowy, windy day Saturday and earning the right to play the Laval Rouge et Or.

It is the third time in four bowl games the Mustangs haven’t come within a time zone of winning. The closest was a 13-11 loss to Laval in 2010. Calgary, Manitoba and Laval have spanked them the other three times.

There were a variety of excuses for those losses. The other conferences had rules that favoured them. The teams were older, bigger and more experienced.

None of that works for this game.

The Dinos were younger, not as big and not as experienced. They lost 19 starters from last year’s semifinal team, lost starting quarterback Eric Dzwilewski in their first game and had to overcome the tragic death of lineman Dan Lamola. The Dinos didn’t know how their season would roll.

The Dinos would end up rolling all over the West Conference and then the No. 1-ranked Mustangs. They showed they could deal with adversity.

“It’s one of those games where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong,” devastated Mustangs’ coach Greg Marshall said.

Marshall has lost seven-of-eight bowl games as a head coach.

To Western’s credit, they realized their performance was unacceptable.

“I feel a lot of pain physically and about the game,” Finch said as he stood on crutches after the game. “I think we underestimated them a little bit and we aren’t too happy.

“It’s devastating. I haven’t been in a game like that in a long, long time. Being beaten by 35, 40 points, it hurts a lot. We’re usually the one’s putting 50 on teams.”