The University of Regina Rams will have one of the top football players in Saskatchewan suiting up for them in 2022.
Running back Marshall Erichsen, who played his high school ball for the Miller Marauders, culminating in a provincial championship in his senior year, has signed with the team.
Erichsen also garnered interest from the universities of Saskatchewan, Calgary, Alberta and Windsor, but ultimately the allure of staying home and playing for the hometown team won out.
“I think I knew I had to stay home,” Erichsen said. “The Rams were treating me the best and the teammates, the whole program is what sold it to me and I get to stay home, it was pretty much a no-brainer,” he said.
Rams interim head coach Mark McConkey said the team has been recruiting Erichsen since his Grade 10 year, and that he is excited that the speedy running back decided to stay in Regina.
“It was nice just to finally hear him say, ‘I’m in,’ he wants to sign, wants to play, because I know he’s getting some love from other schools, but to actually get him signed up was huge. You don’t want to lose players that are right here in your backyard,” McConkey said.
Erichsen’s game is not limited to taking handoffs out of the backfield, as he believes that there are a multitude of ways that the Rams can use his skill set.
“I think they’re going to use me as a back that can run and I can leak out and do an empty backfield when they need situations like that. I think I’ll be the perfect guy,” said Erichsen.
The Rams’ current coaching staff and players are not the only ones who are ecstatic to have a player of Erichsen’s calibre suit up in the green and gold.
When the official signing announcement was made in mid-November, the excited reactions came pouring in.
“You know it’s an exciting recruit when you sign him, you post it on social media, and then I think I had around 52 text messages within the hour when we signed him, just from alumni, board members and even some of the old coaches,” said McConkey.
Erichsen said he is looking forward to getting on the Rams workout program in January to add some muscle and making some new friends on the team, and he hopes to help bring the program a Vanier Cup during his tenure, which would be their first since the team joined the Canada West Conference in 1999.