BCFC Monday Musings with 5 weeks down and 5 to go…

At the Sun/Rams game Saturday night I had to explain to a recent transplant from New Hampshire why exactly the Sun came to have a single point in the first quarter. He responded that as dumb as it was for his country to elect Trump, our rouge option was a close second.

At least he did compliment us for being polite enough to give our kickers something for trying.

How inconsistent is the Okanagan Sun offense this year? Saturday night at the Apple Bowl they were shooting off the Sun touchdown cannon when the home team scored one of the aforementioned rouges.

The biggest issue with the Sun offense is in the passing game as it has cracked the 200-yard mark only once and that was way back in week one. It was better against the Rams with 173, but that came at the expense of what had been a consistent ground game, Saturday night it managed only 46 yards.

The Sun does not have a single receiver in the BCFC top 15 by yardage, that has to be a first after 5 games for the club.

The Langley Rams almost handed over a late lead again, if they hadn’t recovered with a late game winning field goal against the Sun that would have been the 4th time in 4 losses they led going into the 4th quarter.

Momentum is a funny thing in sports as they say though, and while the Rams would have been on life-support with a loss, suddenly at 2-3 they are looking in good shape with an opportunity to move up the standings in a major way the last 5 weeks.

I don’t recall seeing quarterbacks rotated the way Shane Beatty flipped Mason Brown and Ashton Mackinnon who rejoined the team after previously suiting up in 2016 in and out on the weekend loss in Nanaimo.

Beatty is pretty calculated in his game planning so one can only assumed his goal is to keep his passers guessing and ready, time will tell if that strategy pays off. The question is, will Mason Brown be happy to have a new stablemate or is he thinking he didn’t relocated from Ontario to share time.

The BCFC doesn’t hand out an MVP award, going instead with the outstanding offensive and defensive player variety, and while Huskers QB Julian Wytinck is already in the running for the offensive nod, he would be far and away the MVP if there was such a trophy.

The turn-around the Huskers have made this year has been nothing short of incredible as the club already has as many wins this year as the last 4 combined. While the credit obviously starts and stops with the job of head coach Bob Reist, if he hadn’t brought Wytinck in to lead and get the ball to a very talented group of receivers this story wouldn’t be nearly as compelling.

At the risk of getting too far ahead of ourselves he has an outside shot of breaking the passing yardage record of 3243 set by Raiders Jordan Yantz in 2012. Wytinck is sitting at 1581 through 5 games, if he doesn’t knock it off he is going to get awfully close.

Quote of the week from our BCFCTV play by play crews came from Paul Shortt as he worked the Raiders/Rebels game. He referred to Raiders receiver Mike West as “Public transit” as he carried at least a pair of Rebels defensive backs for a few yards.

Thoughts to ponder as we head into the second half of the season with an eye to where teams might finish up the regular standings.

• 6th Place Kamloops Broncos The Broncos have a chance to be the first club in BCFC history to essentially win 2 games in a day in Langford against the Rebels this weekend with the 4 point game. Don’t expect that to happen on this difficult road trip against a desperate Rebels squad. The next 5 games will be all about next year for Kamloops.
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• 5th Place Westshore Rebels No need to document the last few weeks the Rebels have endured, but let’s go there anyway; postponed game, suspended coach, coaching change, suspended players, and finally back to back blowout losses to their biggest nemesis. Do the Rebels have the talent to make a run and sneak in? Absolutely, and with the 4-pointer against Kamloops they will get off to a good start this weekend, still I think if they were really going to show signs of life a better effort would have been put forth than we saw on the weekend in Nanaimo. The offensive line is their Achilles heel. Couple that with the fact their last game of the year is a long road trip to Kelowna and I think the Rebels will come up just short.
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• 4th Place Valley Huskers The Huskers have 5 games from hell with the Rams, Sun, Rebels, Rebels and Raiders up and to make matters worse 4 of those games are on the road. Presently in 1st spot, the Huskers defence is going to have to step up to keep them from going 1-4 the rest of the way.
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• 3rd Place Okanagan Sun If the old saying “Defence wins championships” holds true the Sun have an opportunity to make me eat my words. But with the inconsistency of the offence I already talked about I don’t see it happening. Of all the teams the Sun have played in their BCFC history that dates back to 1981 the team they have faired the worst against is the VI Raiders (11-16 lifetime) and they face them twice in three weeks.
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• 2nd Place Langley Rams The Rams have arguably the softest schedule of the teams with a pair of games against the cellar dwelling Broncos. Can they ride the momentum of the win over the Sun and run the table the rest of the way? That would get them at least second place, something that seemed out of the question a week ago. Look for a 5-0 run as the Rams finish up 7-3.
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• 1st Place VI Raiders I ruffled a lot of feathers in Nanaimo, to the point where Raiders head coach Doug Hocking won’t discuss interviews with me when I picked them to finish 3rd in a pre-season piece. While the sensitivity over a website story has me shaking my head it’s pretty clear the Raiders are the most balanced team in the BCFC. Although their schedule is no walk in the park with just 2 home games among the Sun, Broncos, Sun, Rams and Huskers tilts they have up no team is going to catch them, In fact the only team that will knock them off before the post season is the Rams in week nine.

Game of the Week

There isn’t a game of the week…there are 3.

The Rebels and Broncos in a 4-pointer is interesting on so many levels. Do the Broncos shock the world or at least the rest of the BCFC or do the Rebels get back in the hunt?

Do the Huskers knock off the Rams and keep the dream season going? Look for both teams to put up 25 plus points in an entertaining and wild game.

The VI Raiders and Okanagan Sun are a pair of teams heading in opposite directions and the Raiders tied the Sun at the Apple Bowl in the regular season before knocking them off in the semi-final last year. This isn’t a must win for the Sun mathematically but it’s a must win in every other aspect.

Musings is for opinion purposes only and does not reflect the opinions of the BCFC or its teams.