Saskatchewan Huskies football team motivated by last year’s disappointment

The University of Saskatchewan Huskies football team is hoping to turn a negative into a positive this season.

The 2017 campaign was one to forget as the Dogs lost their last six games to finish 2-6 and miss the playoffs for the first time since 2001.

Now they’re using that painful memory as motivation as they begin preparing for another year.

“No one wants to have that feeling again of what it was like going two and six last year so looking back I think it’s always in the back of our minds,” running back Colton Klassen said.

Huskies training camp is now underway and there’s an extra spring in the step of many players who want to prove that last season was an anomaly.

“We’re in a lot better position this year than we were last year at this time of the year and I think it’s that buy-all-in or get-all-out mentality that we need to have around here,” fifth-year running back Tyler Chow said.

“We all just realized that’s not good enough so we all came with a little more drive this off-season,” defensive back Payton Hall added.

At the end of the 2017 campaign head coach Scott Flory made it clear that he wanted a bigger, faster, stronger team this season. His players took the message to heart, with many taking part in a more robust off-season training program led by strength and conditioning coach Joel Lipinski.

“A lot of guys in university are from out of province, out of city, but a lot of guys stayed in town this year because they wanted to get bigger, they wanted to get stronger. Just the amount of guys that bought in this year was amazing,” Klassen said.

Flory is also pleased with the early returns.

“We absolutely expect progress in that (area) but we understand it’s going to take a little time. But the guys have bought into it; everything we’re doing from a strength and conditioning aspect, and it’s going to show on the field,” he said.

Whether the extra off-season work leads to more success on game day is yet to be seen, but the Huskies feel they’re moving in the right direction.

“The good thing about the Canada West (conference) is every team is good…every team can beat every team,” Hall said. “Obviously we lost last year quite a bit but it’s not like we were getting blown out. We were there, we just have a lot of stuff to clean up and we can build off that.”

The team’s training camp concludes on August 24 with the annual green and white intrasquad game. The Huskies open the regular season August 31 at home against the University of Alberta Golden Bears.