Day and night, Caleb Evans and Davis Alexander. The Alouettes started the game with the former, before bringing in the latter at halftime. The change paid off, and the Sparrows came away with a 20-16 victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The game seemed to be over for the Alouettes. The offense was stuck, the defense, permissive. Then, Davis Alexander was there. The 25-year-old quarterback, third in the team hierarchy at his position, would complete his first, then fourteen other passes to allow his team to win.
“This is a moment I’ve been waiting for my whole life,” commented the hero of the day after the game. “We have the best receivers in the league, all I had to do was find a way to get them the ball,” he modestly analyzed.
On his first possession, Alexander looked like he was being sacked, continuing in the footsteps of his predecessor. But in the final second, Alexander escaped the pressure, threw a pass right down the middle to Tyson Philpot for a 30-yard gain. The sequence ended with a touchdown by Reggie White Jr.
The same refrain was repeated a few moments later: another long pass to Philpot, another touchdown by White Jr. And in a dramatic turn of events, despite a difficult performance, the Sparrows took the lead 17-16.
“I swear, if we had a blood pressure machine, he’d have the lowest blood pressure on the team,” teammate Wesley Sutton joked. “To be thrown into the game like that, to accomplish what he accomplished, it’s really unbelievable.”
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Tyson Philpot (6)
In the locker room, the mood was celebratory. As media representatives surrounded Alexander, his teammates took pictures of him, themselves seemingly stunned by the outcome of the evening. General manager Danny Maciocia was particularly smiling.
“When we put him on our negotiation lists, I had the feeling that he was a young player that we could develop,” he said. “I’m not surprised by his level of performance. There are players who are gamers. He’s one of them. I think he practices even better than he plays.”
Missed opportunity
There’s no beating around the bush: Caleb Evans was awful in the first half. On several possessions, he looked left, right, ran as best he could, looking for teammates to pass the ball to. Yet, there were often plenty of open options.
When Evans did get his shots off, his passes were often too high, or at the feet of his teammates. As a result, he finished the first half with a meager 91 yards on 17 pass attempts. He was sacked twice. And he was benched.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Caleb Evans (center)
“There were some sequences where we were victims of a lack of communication. It just didn’t click. I feel like everything clicked more in the second half. Sometimes, that’s how it is,” he described.
“I don’t think it’s all on Caleb, but I also think he knows he can do some things better,” coach Jason Maas said. “It’s really hard to blame a quarterback, knowing that football is a team game.”
“It’s not always the quarterback’s fault, but sometimes you need a spark,” he continued. “At that point, we definitely needed something to happen.”
The coach declined to reveal who his starting quarterback would be for the next game, against the Tiger-Cats in Hamilton on Aug. 2. “We’ll watch the film, we won’t just go by our current feeling,” he said.
If the Alouettes were without starting quarterback Cody Fajardo, the same was true for the Roughriders, given Trevor Harris’ injury. Shea Patterson was taking over.
The Alouettes’ special teams were particularly depleted. Tyrell Richards, Régis Cibasu and Frédéric Chagnon were notably missing. As was receiver Kaion Julien-Grant, who was injured in the shoulder.
The team could, however, count on the return of defensive back Wesley Sutton and safety Marc-Antoine Dequoy.
The Als have lost just once this season, in their previous game against the Toronto Argonauts.