To the Cats, it’s Never Over Until it’s Over

Until the pilot light goes right out, the stove can still cook your dinner.

Thus, despite back-to-back aggravating home losses to division rivals Toronto and Montréal that pulled their post-season aspirations into deep peril, the Ticats are focusing on winning one game at a time. And it’s likely that they’d have to do that four straight times, and get some help in other games, to avoid being eliminated by the end of the schedule.

“Still pushing for that playoff spot,” offensive guard and team captain Brandon Revenberg said Thursday as his team prepared to meet the Elks in Edmonton Saturday night (7 p.m., Ticats Audio Network, TSN, Y-108).

“I'm going to believe until it can't be achieved.”

If the Cats win in the final match of this CFL weekend, they cannot be mathematically eliminated no matter how the other three games go. It would still be a long shot that there is not a west-to-east playoff crossover, but long is better than no shot at all. Hamilton would still need to probably win out to equal the record of at least two West conference teams to avoid the fourth-place Western travelling east for the opening round.

There’s no doubt the Ticats need more consistent play, and fewer mistakes, than they’ve demonstrated recently, but if they also require a little psychological reminder of the CFL’s late-season volatility, they don’t have to look too far back in the rearview mirror. In 2022, they were also 4-10 heading into the final month and won all four of their remaining games to finish third in the East and make the playoffs. They needed help then too and got it when the bottom two teams in the West went winless in that same stretch.

And the year before, albeit in a schedule reduced by the pandemic to 14 games, the Cats were wavering at 4-5 but won four of their remaining five, then made it all the way to overtime in a hometown Grey Cup.

Should it not go the Cats’ way over the balance of the schedule, there is also the historical knowledge that they won the division last season, a year after finishing in last place, and injured quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell says he’s revved up for next year, planning to pick right up from the brilliant season start he was having until he was injured in game 4.

“Wins, W’s, that’s what is going to be every game,” middle linebacker Wynton McManis said of the team’s current collective mindset. “We know this. We live in the business of winning, whether there's playoff implications in games, whether there’s not.”

To a man, the Cats have been taken aback to find themselves at 4-14, while still nodding to the old sports adage that you are what your record says you are, especially in the waning parts of a season.

“Pretty surprised,” head coach Scott Milanovich said of his team’s record. “Pretty surprised. Even after Bo went down, I thought we'd win some of those close games that we haven't. And we'd still be in a better place relative to the playoffs.”

It might seem naïve to ask for four straight wins from a club which has lost four straight, but Milanovich points out that other than the Labour Day loss and last week’s schooling by Montréal—"the last two games I didn't think we put our best foot forward”—there were a few moments in every match when it could have swung the other way. It didn’t and, well, you are what your record…. etc.

“If you take the last two games out, even after Bo got hurt, we've been in every single game, and we've played reasonably well at times. Not well at other times.

“I would like us to come out early, play well all night and be in a game when we play with the lead.

“We’ve got to stop having to try to come from behind. Let's play with the lead.”

That would be advisable against an Edmonton team which itself is trying to rebound from last to first—with a handful of players who did it last year in Hamilton—and whose 10-4 record is a mirror image of the Cats’ ledger.

The Elks have not scored a first-quarter touchdown in their last six games but have won four of them by reacting well at the half, generating 19 total turnovers, creating good field position and riding the strong seasons of their third-season running back and 34-year-old quarterback. And the Elks are 6-0 when they lead at the half and are 5-1 in games decided by four points or fewer, while the Cats are 1-3 in margins of five points or fewer.

The Cat defence will have to reel in Elk tailback Justin Rankin, who has mused aloud in the past about becoming the first CFLer to both rush for 1000 yards and have 1000 yards in receiving in the same year. He’s likely got his second straight 1000-yard rushing season secured, ranking third in the league and needing only 58 yards to reach a grand. He’s got an exemplary 581 receiving yards but would need to average 105 per game coming home to hit 1000.

Rankin has nine rushing TDs, his 31 dashes of 10 yards or longer are tied with Brady Oliveira, and he’s the clear CFL leader in 20-plus-yard runs, with nine.

His running, especially to the outside, and quarterback Cody Fajardo’s quick release light the wick for play-action and run-pass-options.

And Rankin has a fertile, if still brief, history against the Ticats. Undrafted out of college in 2020, he spent three seasons playing only indoor football before joining the Elks in 2024 and finally making the game-day roster in early August. Two weeks later in Hamilton, he had his first 100-yard rushing game (108), and his three touchdowns powered the Elks to a 47-22 win.

And last year, he scored three touchdowns in two games: one on a pass and another on a run in a 28-24 Ticat win in Alberta, when he totalled 133 yards from scrimmage on a dozen carries and seven catches; in the second game, a 29-27 Cat victory in Hamilton, he had 10 runs and a pair of receptions, one for a TD, and another 113 yards from scrimmage.

Three games, six touchdowns. Worth keeping an eye on him and keeping him between the tackles.

“It’s more than interior pressure,” Milanovich cautioned earlier this week. “You have to be gap-sound. I don’t know how many times this year teams have been gap-sound and then a guy misses a tackle. And then he’s off to the races…that’s what the special ones do. He’s an elite running back, dual-purpose. He caught a seam ball a few weeks back when he looked like a receiver. A really good football player.”

Fajardo meanwhile continues to impress after taking over from Tre Ford for the final 13 games last year. The 2023 Grey Cup Most Outstanding Player (with the Alouettes) is up there with the more-talked-about Chad Kelly and Davis Alexander, ranking third in passing yardage, and second in attempts. He has a lower completion rate at 70 percent and has thrown interceptions, but he’s judicious, red-zone proficient and has the complete confidence of his teammates.

“I played with Cody in Montreal my first years in the league, and I just see a team who's very inspired by their quarterback,” Ticat SAM linebacker Reggie Stubblefield says of the Elks.

“I see a team that's very balanced and a team that is playing with a lot of belief and a lot of aspirations to get to where they want to get to. I see a team that’s had a few guys in their organization who may have gone through some losing seasons who continue to get better, to accomplish the things that they probably haven't done in a long time.

“They have some really talented players over there. So, it's just a great challenge for us.”

Which teams with .714 winning percentages usually are. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have vulnerabilities which can be probed: for one thing the Cats have won their last six visits to Commonwealth; the Cats’ defence has allowed the fewest 30-plus-yard completions in the league while the Elks’ offence is in the lower half of long-pass success; the Elks have fumbled more than anyone in the league; Cody Fajardo did not throw a touchdown pass last week for the first time this season; the Ticats are among the least-penalized teams in the league while Edmonton’s offence takes a lot of penalties; and if Harrison Frost can get a bit more time to throw, and avoid some of the interceptions he’s tossed, his touchdown delivery—six in the last six quarters—can become more impactful, and his second-down conversion rate last week was the second best the team has had this season.

There are a couple of lopsided statistics in play that the Ticats would like to render irrelevant in this must-win game.

The Elks have turned Commonwealth Stadium back into their personal sandbox where they own all the toys. After some very rough home years, they began to reassert their home turf claim at 5-4 last season, despite finishing last in the West division. And this year their only loss in eight games at home was back on the August long weekend when Saskatchewan, behind three fourth-quarter touchdowns by short-yardage QB Tommy Stevens, prevailed 28-26 in a wet and dismal game delayed over an hour by lightning threats. The Cats, who were 6-3 away from Hamilton last year, a big factor in their first-place finish, are just 1-5 on the road this season.

And the Elks will be triggered by being swept by Hamilton in their two games last year and losing the last six Cat games at Commonwealth.

As well as an opportunistic defence which leads the league in forced fumbles and overall metrics, Edmonton’s offence has Fajardo throwing to a receiving corps that includes Austin Mack, already over 1000 yards, Rankin’s 55 catches, TJ Luther and Kaion Julien-Grant. Fajardo makes them all better, and the run game, setting up play-action and pass-run-option, makes Fajardo better.

Obviously, Hamilton’s defence will have to tourniquet the run and Fajardo’s game savvy to keep their slim playoff hopes alive.

“We know we have things we need to fix and get better at,” middle linebacker Wynton McManis said this week. “We try to go out on the field each practice and correct them and make sure we correct them in the game. I still believe we’re a great team. I still think this team has a lot of potential. I think we aren’t competing at what our standards are and to everybody's capabilities.”

CATS CLAUSES

The Ticat defence will be without two key starters in shutdown cornerback Jamal Peters and defensive tackle Miles Fox, who have both been placed on the 1-game injury list. Field corner Zamari Walton switches sides to replace Peters, and Devodric Bynum moves from halfback to field corner, while Quavian White returns to the game-day roster to start at field half. And Nik Constantinou, back from an NFL tryout , takes over punting duties for Mitch McCarthy, who goes to the practice roster.

For Edmonton, receivers TJ Luther and Joe Robustelli are injured; premier returner Javon Leake is on the six-game injury list, as are former Ticats Brandon Barlow and Jordan Murray.

This game is a band of brothers, including Hamilton quarterback Tre Ford and his twin Tyrell, the Edmonton field-side cornerback; and Ticat defensive line Owen Hubert, the McMaster grad and his younger brother Silas, a defensive end who’s in his second year with the Elks out of Queen’s. The Hubert brothers, who played their high school football in Norwood, near Peterborough, faced each other twice last year on opposite sides for the first time in their playing careers, “so the initial novelty has worn off a little bit,” Owen Hubert says, “but it’s still an amazing feeling to be out there on the same field.” Hubert told his younger brother several years ago that they would both play in the CFL someday, “and the odds against making the CFL, for any athlete, are so high that it’s been a real blessing for both of us to be here.”

Some Familiar Faces

Ed Hervey spent two years as the Ticats’ assistant general manager before becoming GM in 2024, the season before he returned to Edmonton last year as GM and Vice-President of Football Ops. So, it’s not surprising that the Elks have nine former Hamilton players, including seven who were with the Cats when they went from last to first last season.

Offensive linemen Brendan Bordner and Coulter Woodmansey, WR Brendan O’Leary-Orange, and backup quarterback Taylor Powell are 2025 Cats on the active Edmonton roster; offensive tackles Jordan Miurray and defensive end Brandon Barlow are both on the injured list; and 2025 draft choice Arvin Hosseini just arrived in Edmonton seven weeks ago and is on the practice roster.

Defensive lineman Malik Carney, who has a team-leading 7 tackles, was in Hamilton from 2021-23, spent two strong seasons in Saskatchewan, won a Cup, then went to the Elks this season. And versatile offensive centre David Beard was in Hamilton in 2023 and ’24 and made the all-CFL team as a Cat before returning to his hometown as a free agent.

“Those are guys who’ve played a lot of football,” says second-year Ticat Reggie Stubblefield of his former teammates. “In 2024 maybe they didn’t have the best record but then they came back in 2025 and were first place in the East. So those guys have a good understanding of how then CFL works, have a good understanding of how our operation works and how we do things over here.

“They’re excelling in their roles there. I watch them on film, and I still see over there what I saw here; good players playing hard.”

NOTES AND QUOTES: Ticat WR Kiondré Smith is pushing toward his second successive 1000-yard season with 812 and has the longest per-catch average of his 5-year career at 15.6 yards per … Keric Wheatfall has 769 yards, with 7 catches over 30 yards and Kenny Lawler has 6 TDs and 650 receiving yards … SAM LB Reggie Stubblefield has 70 defensive tackles, tied for 6^th overall returner/receiver Isaiah Wooden Sr. has 1711 all-purpose yards, 1078 of those on kickoff returns … FB Daniel Bell is tied for 5^th in CFL special teams tackles at 15 and has made at least one in 8 straight games … Hamilton S Stavros Katsantonis is tied for 2^nd in the CFL with 5 interceptions, one back of the Elks Tyrell Ford, Tre Ford’s twin brother. Edmonton’s JJ Ross has 4 and teammate Kordell Jackson 3 …Elks DL Noah Taylor’s 8 sacks are 2^nd in the CFL, tied with the Ticats’ DE Phil Ossai … WR Austin Mack ranks 4^th in the CFL with 1061 receiving yards and has 8 catches for 30 yards or longer … last week in Toronto former Ticat Malik Carney had his best game for Elks with 2 sacks and 2 forced fumbles. He is tied for 4th in the CFL with 7 sacks, one off his career set last season for Saskatchewan.… LB Joel Dublanko has 58 defensive tackles … DK Bonhomme ranks 4^th in the CFL with 16 special teams tackles … Edmonton returner Javon Leake is on the 6-game injured list. He had 1448 return yards on missed field goal and kickoffs … since interlocking CFL play began in 1961, Edmonton has 62 wins, Hamilton 42 and there’s been one tie.