The 2014 season was, by Labour Day, a write-off for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. The starting Ticats quarterback, Zach Collaros, was out in the second game, and his backup was not Dan LeFevour but Jeremiah Masoli. Masoli crashed and burned quickly, and LeFevour won the starting spot until he too was injured in late August.
Of course Collaros returned for Labour Day, and with the new stadium finally inhabitable, the Ticats roared to the end of the season with an 8-3 record and a perfect record at home. In the off-season, Dan LeFevour moved on to Montreal, where he is presumably vying to take over at pivot if Jonathan Crompton falters.
But in Hamilton, the second string is far from certain. Three quarterbacks are currently on the roster: Jeremiah Masoli, Jacory Harris, and Jeff Matthews.
Masoli
The Oregon and Ole Miss product had a respectable college career on the field, taking the Ducks to the Rose Bowl in 2010, and he was picked up as an undrafted free agent by the San Francisco 49ers in 2011. However, he was soon waived, and he eventually made his way up to Edmonton in 2012, although he spent his first season injured. He was traded to Hamilton as part of a five-player deal.
He was a reliable short-yardage quarterback for Hamilton in 2013, and when Collaros was knocked out early in the 2014 season, Masoli got the first start in backup. That’s where things took a turn for the worse.
Masoli floundered around like a rookie for the first part of the game. His passes were ineffective, leaving drive after promising drive stalled, and despite his ability as a running quarterback he seemed locked into the pocket. When Hamilton picked up a turnover at midfield, Austin put LeFevour in and Masoli was relegated to the third rung again.
While he has probably developed as a quarterback in the intervening months, it’s possible that Masoli is on borrowed time. He didn’t take any snaps in last night’s exhibition against Ottawa, and his place under centre is far from secure.
Harris
Jacory Harris had a stellar high school and college career in Florida, but he also had trouble finding work in the NFL. He was signed by Philadelphia as an undrafted free agent in 2012, then was almost immediately released. He was then signed by the Tiger-Cats in July of last year, although he was mostly on the practice roster and never took to the field.
In the first 2015 exhibition game, though, Harris looked sharp. He went 5-9 for 73 yards, including connections on his first two passes. The second pass was a 39-yard stinger to Tiquan Underwood. Although Underwood looked like he’d crossed the plane, the refs put the ball on the 1 yard line, and Harris himself plunged in for the major. He later picked up a 26-yard scramble when the Redblacks abandoned the centre of the field, leaving him plenty of room to run. His only misstep was a pick in the endzone, snuffing out what looked like another confident touchdown drive
It’s only one game, only an exhibition game, and only the Redblacks, but Harris made the most of his time with the ball, and is clearly a contender for the backup spot.
Mathews
If anyone is going to take the second spot behind Collaros, though, it looks to be Jeff Mathews. He’s most likely on the team because he played under Austin in Cornell, but he was a true star in college, still holding dozens of Cornell records and 18 Ivy League records. But the NFL draft is not kind to quarterbacks, and he remained undrafted, bouncing around from team to team in 2013 and 2014. Finally he landed with the Tiger-Cats in early 2015.
He impressed in his first night on the field, to be sure. He passed for 188, hitting 9 of 15 attempts, but he looked like a player who had already taken the top job. In his second possession, he was flushed out of the pocket, but, waving the receivers downfield, he lofted a strong pass to rookie Terrence Tolliver, who ran the rest of the 73 yards to the end zone.
He continued to build confident drives with a range of targets, hitting Bakari Grant twice for 17 and 46 yards and setting up field goals, He finally nailed a pass to Matt Coates for a 23-yard touchdown, ending the half with 20 points on offence.
Austin’s Choice
It’s a good problem to have: a clear starting quarterback, and three spare men, each with a strong case for taking one of the two backup spots. After last year’s plague of injuries, Austin will be thinking of the backups as the here-and-now, not some distant probability.
And after Matthews’ performance last night, Austin must be thinking seriously about replacing Masoli as the first man up after Collaros. There might be a bit of favoritism there, with Austin’s history coaching Mathews, but after that first half, no one would fault the head coach for keeping Mathews around.
But Harris, too, made a strong case for himself. Even without the team’s marquee receivers (Tasker, Banks, and Fantuz were all sitting out) he built impressive drives and made some impressive plays.
And only a year ago, Masoli was good enough to earn a start in the third game of the season. He didn’t perform well, but he’s not a washout.
There’s a lot going on in selecting the backup pivots, and not just on the field; leadership, attitude, and confidence show up in places where the fans can’t see them, in the locker room and on the practice field.
But unless there’s some factor that we haven’t seen yet, it seems very possible that when the season opens, Masoli will be heading elsewhere, and the two new young guns will be standing in black and gold on the sidelines.
