The University of Saskatchewan Huskies football team struggled with consistency last season, especially on defence. They were among the conference leaders in sacks and forced turnovers but gave up a ton of points.
“I don’t think we’ve given up more long passes last year than the previous 10 years, so that was a concern of ours,” said defensive coordinator Ed Carleton.
READ MORE: Sask. Huskies QB Drew Burko signs CFL contract with the Alouettes
The Dogs fielded a very young defence in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) 2015 season, particularly in the secondary. The lack of experience showed as Saskatchewan allowed 379 pass yards per game, the most in Canada West.
“Whether that was a missed tackle or a blown assignment or someone just got beat … we’re still pretty young in the back end but those kids have more experience now,” said head coach Brian Towriss.
The quest for consistency is a big focus at training camp.
“We’ve got a lot of returning guys. Yes, we lost two of our linebackers and they’re great players but I feel like a lot of guys can step up,” said Huskies defensive back Spencer Krieger.
Krieger is the veteran leader of the Huskies secondary that hopes to be a lot stingier this season and it starts with a little healthy competition for starting positions.
“It’s definitely bringing up the intensity in camp for sure so everybody’s flying … hopefully we’ll continue it,” Krieger said.
“I think we’re a little bit deeper. We had a really good recruiting year on defence this year and that’s helped out bringing some kids in that, even right out of high school, looked like they were ready to move at this level,” Carleton said.
READ MORE: New clubhouse in the works for the Saskatoon Hilltops
A stout pass rush should also help the Dogs.
Saskatchewan had a conference-best 18 sacks last season including eight from defensive lineman Donovan Dale, who is in his fifth and final year of CIS football.
“We definitely take it on as a challenge every year as a defensive line that we have to make our secondaries’ lives as easy as possible every single year and we’re going to do that,” Dale said.
In other words, the Huskies defence wants to be making big plays not giving them up.
“Basically, just be confident in ourselves and that’s the one thing that we lacked last year. So, just bring that forward and be relaxed and I feel like we’ll do pretty well,” Krieger said.
Saskatchewan will see its first pre-season action Saturday at Griffiths Stadium when the University of Alberta Golden Bears come to town.
Ryan Flaherty contributed to this story
Comments