Sean Whyte will be a happy man if he’s looking really scruffy by the end of the CFL season.
Whyte and quarterback Danny O’Brien, who holds the ball on field goals and converts, have pledged not to shave until the Eskimos place-kicker misses another field goal.
“My last miss was in Toronto,” said Whyte. “Since then, Danny O’Brien and I have been growing our beards out. We don’t shave our beards until the next miss.
“We are both terrible beard growers, but we’re doing it just for fun,” he explained.
Whyte, 32, has made 13 field goals in a row over six games since that miss from 32 yards on July 7. Eight of the kicks have been from 40 or more yards, including a pair of 49-yarders at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium against the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Montreal Alouettes.
A long streak of field goals is nothing new for Whyte, who broke the Eskimos’ club record by making 25 consecutive field goal attempts over two seasons – the first 18 in 2016 and the last seven last year.
He also hit 24 field goals in a row with the Alouettes in 2011, missing a 33-yard attempt to tie the second-longest streak in CFL history at the time. Rene Paredes of the Calgary Stampeders has since booted a league-record 39 consecutive field goals in 2012-13 (a blocked field goal didn’t interrupt his streak because the ball didn’t cross the line of scrimmage).
“My job is to make my kicks, and I’m not happy unless I’m perfect,” said Whyte. “I’m always working to be perfect. I know that’ll never happen, but I still work towards it. I just want to be consistent.
“I’ll give myself two misses in the first half of the season and two misses in the last half. Obviously, I want to be a 90-per-cent kicker or higher. Anything better, I’m happy with.”
Whyte currently has an 89.5-per-cent success rate this season (making 17 of 19 field goal attempts). He’s also got a career mark of 86.2 per cent (288 of 334 attempts) to rank second among the CFL’s all-time success percentages. Paredes is No. 1 at 87.2 per cent.
Whyte played only six games last season after tearing a quadriceps muscle against the B.C. Lions on July 28. He returned to the lineup to play the final game of the regular season and both playoff contests in 2017 but was still affected by the injury at the start of this season.
“It’s getting better,” he said. “Coming off the torn quad, I felt like my technique fell away from me just from kicking with a sore leg all off-season. At the beginning (of the season), I felt like I was kind of slow and trying to get my body back into good shape where I want to be. I’ve been trying to play catch-up with it.
“But the more I play, and as the team’s coming together, I feel like I’m getting better.”
Whyte became only the fourth player to kick 100 field goals for the Eskimos when he had a four-for-four outing last week against Montreal. He trails only Sean Fleming (553), Dave Cutler (464) and Jerry Kauric (118) on the all-time list.
“I grew up hearing about these guys,” said Whyte, who didn’t realize that he had reached a milestone with the Eskimos until after the game. “(Montreal kicker) Boris Bede came up to me after the game and asked, ‘What did you get? I saw you on the screen.’ I had no idea. I looked later and saw it on Twitter.”
Whyte also recently passed the 400-point mark with the Esks (he’s tied with Noel Prefontaine for 10th place on the team’s all-time scoring list at 402 points) and passed the 1,200-point mark in his CFL career. He needs only 41 points to tie another ex-Eskimos kicker, Damon Duval (1,258), for 18th place on the league’s all-time scoring list.
”That really shows my age,” he quipped.
“Coming to the Eskimos, I knew there was such a great history of football here,” said Whyte. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve loved football and the fans, this organization and all its history. To be a part of it is pretty sweet, man, and a lot of fun.
“Hopefully, I can keep getting better and maybe I’ll break those records.”
Whyte admitted that he has always thought about wanting to break kicking records, but now his focus is more near-sighted.
“I take it game by game, and I just want to make my kicks perfect and help this team as much as I can,” he said. “I know if I’ve had a bad game or not. Obviously, if I’ve missed one, I’m not mad, but I don’t think I’m playing good.
“I just want wins, man. As long as this team’s winning, everyone will be having fun. I just want another Grey Cup, especially this year in Edmonton. That’s all I look forward to.
“I don’t look at stats,” he added. “I don’t even know how many (field goals) I’ve attempted this year. I have no idea. I know my last miss was Toronto and I just hope it stays that way for as long as possible.”
It’s probably a good thing that Whyte isn’t looking at the record book anymore. At his current pace, he would attempt only 38 field goals this year. That would be the fewest he’s ever had during a full 18-game season.
Whyte isn’t the only Eskimos player who has been re-writing the record book lately.
Quarterback Mike Reilly, who was named a CFL player of the week for a fourth time this season after completing 33 of 42 passes for 424 yards and three touchdowns in last week’s 40-24 victory over the Alouettes, is tied with Sam Etcheverry for 10th place on the CFL’s all-time list with 39 300-plus-yard passing games.
Reilly, who leads the league with 3,046 yards, 19 passing touchdowns and eight rushing TDs, recently passed the 25,000-yard mark in his CFL career and now needs just 84 passing yards to tie Condredge Holloway (25,193) for 18th place on the league’s all-time passing yards list.
Meanwhile, middle linebacker J.C. Sherritt celebrated his 100th career game with his third quarterback sack of the season last Saturday.
“It was a battle to get there,” Sherritt said about reaching the century mark in games played. “I wanted it to be sooner in my career, but to still be playing ball at this age (30) and playing good, it means a lot to me.
“Any time you win in this league, it’s a big deal no matter the opponent, no matter who you’re playing,” he continued. “All points matter. To get a win while it was my 100th game was special.”
Sherritt, who leads the Eskimos with 48 defensive tackles, is closing in on 500 career tackles. He currently ranks fourth on the team’s all-time list at 476 tackles, having passed CFL Hall of Fame linebacker Danny Bass earlier this season.
Other individual milestones on the horizon include:
* Wide receiver Derel Walker needs 16 yards to tie Marco Cyncar (4,165) for 14th place on the Eskimos’ all-time receiving yards list.
* Walker needs seven receptions to reach 300 for his CFL career.
* Fellow receiver Vidal Hazelton, who will play on Thursday at Hamilton against the Tiger-Cats (game time is 5:30 p.m. MDT) for the first time since the season opener, needs 90 receiving yards to reach the 2,000-yard mark for his career.
* Running back C.J. Gable needs 101 rushing yards to reach 1,000 yards with the Eskimos since joining the team late last year.
* Whyte needs two converts to tie Grant Shaw (97) for seventh place and 10 points to tie Johnny Bright (412) for ninth place on the Eskimos’ all-time scoring lists.