A handful of big plays in the second half helped the Edmonton Eskimos escape from their CFL home opener with a 23-19 come-from-behind victory Friday over the Montreal Alouettes.
Backup running back Travon Van and star receiver Adarius Bowman scored touchdowns, outside linebacker Kenny Ladler made a key interception early in the fourth quarter and Sean Whyte booted a career-high 55-yard field goal as the Eskimos overcame a disappointing first half in front of 31, 828 spectators on The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium.
“I think the sky’s the limit for this team if we play our best brand of football,” said quarterback Mike Reilly. “When you play a first half like we did and you mess so many things up … and you can come out in the second half and play a good game and finish with a win, that gives me a lot of hope for what we’re capable of when we put it all together.”
The Eskimos, who fell behind 10-0 in the first quarter and never led until Bowman’s TD catch in the back of the end zone 4-1/2 minutes into the fourth quarter, couldn’t wait to get back on the field at halftime. They were all up on their feet, ready to go, with two minutes left in the break they didn’t want or need.
“It was probably the most severe case of getting in your own way that I’ve been a part of in football because we had the right play calls, we were executing it correctly with 11 out of 12 guys on the field and we all took our turns kind of screwing up,” Reilly said. “It started with me on the first two plays, missing wide-open guys and not throwing the ball accurately. And then it seemed like everybody took a turn. It’s almost one of those things where you just wanted everybody to screw up on one play and get it out of your system and then we’ll just go.
“But it wasn’t that way in the first half. We all had a hand in a lack of execution.”
The Eskimos had at least six dropped passes by five different receivers, lost two fumbles and took 12 penalties for 86 yards in the game.
A couple of catches early in the third quarter by Vidal Hazelton led to Van’s 11-yard scoring run that required a second effort to get into the end zone after he took a big hit near the goalline, but Whyte missed the convert and the Esks still trailed by one point.
Van struggled in the first half after replacing the injured John White (knee), managing only 18 yards on seven carries. He eventually adjusted his timing, trying to be more patient and let blocks develop before he hit the hole.
“I slowed down a little bit and got the run in,” said Van, who missed a week of practice and the season opener when he returned home to San Diego for a family funeral.
“He’ll get better with every (repetition) he takes back there,” Edmonton head coach Jason Maas said about Van, who finished with 50 rushing yards on 17 carries.
Whyte was still steamed about his missed convert when he attempted his 55-yarder “so I added a little bit of anger to it. When I hit it, I hit it really hard.”
He had already kicked three-pointers from 13 and 43 yards and booted a 60-yarder during the pre-game warm-up, so he still wanted to kick the ball when a procedure penalty moved the ball back to the Montreal 47 from the 42.
“When we got backed up, I just looked at (the Eskimos coaches),” he said. “I didn’t want to come off the field. I knew I could make it. They gave me a thumbs up, I gave them the thumbs up and we went for it.
“Everything was perfect and I hit it as good as I possibly could and everything worked out.”
Whyte said it was “fun” to make a career-best kick, but it also gave the Eskimos a boost late in the third quarter, narrowing the deficit to 16-15.
“You could see everyone jumping up and down and trying to celebrate after it and I’m trying to calm everyone down,” he said. “ ‘Hey, we have a lot of football left to play and I probably still have three more kicks to make.’ ”
As it turned out, Whyte didn’t have to make another scoring kick because of Bowman’s “amazing” catch, according to Reilly, and Van’s one-yard run for the two-point convert to take a 23-16 lead.
The touchdown was set up by Ladler’s interception, which he returned to the Montreal 30-yard-line.
“I just did my job and made sure I made the play I was supposed to make,” he said, explaining that he had seen the pass on game film many times. “It was a play our team really needed. Our offence was getting stopped and our defence was bending, but didn’t break. We didn’t give up any more touchdowns.”
Of course, Bowman came up with six big catches in the second half, including his major, to finish with a game-high nine receptions and 117 yards.
“We needed that to happen,” Bowman said. “It was a rough (first) half out there and it was my group. They’ve got to follow me, so I had to step up and the boys did a great job.
“If we continue to have a full game like we had that second half, we can see a lot more out of this group,” he added.
Maas said the best thing about the game was it wasn’t the team’s best effort and the Eskimos still won to improve to 2-0.
“A lot of discipline problems,” he said. “We need to clean some things up, but it’s good because we have a long week when we get back (from the bye week), we get to watch this film, correct (the mistakes), coach them extremely hard.”
The Eskimos are back in action with another home game on Friday, July 14, against the reigning Grey Cup champion Ottawa Redblacks.