The Canadian Quarterback Internship Program, a joint venture between U Sports and the Canadian Football League, debuted in 2010 and become mandatory in 2012, requiring each CFL team to include a Canadian university pivot at its training camp.
At the time, it was nearing 20 years since a Canadian had last started CFL game under centre. In fact, from 1997 through 2009, there was not one instance of a Canadian QB on an CFL team’s active roster.
By providing opportunity for participants to develop their skills and attend team and positional meetings alongside their professional counterparts, the program is part of an effort to boost the presence of Canadian QBs in the CFL. And now after over a decade, that goal is starting to be realized.
At the CFL Draft early this month, the Edmonton Elks selected Waterloo Warriors star pivot Tre Ford, a two-time participant in the program, eight overall. That made Ford the first QB to be taken in the first round of the National Draft since 1980.
Now in training camp with the Elks at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium, Ford is a bonafide example what’s possible for Canadian QBs to achieve. And one can imagine how inspiring that must be for Edmonton’s 2022 QB intern, Anthony Robichaud from the University of Sherbrooke.
“A few years back there were almost no Canadian quarterbacks, so to see Tre Ford and Nathan Rourke (B.C. Lions 2020 second-round draft pick who started two games last season with the Lions) in B.C. is very encouraging for us,” says Robichaud.
“There’s like a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s pushing me to continue to chase my dreams and push harder at school … It’s my dream to play professional football, so I’m almost there.”
Robichaud has been the starting quarterback for the Vert & Or since he began attending Sherbrooke in 2019. Last season he completed 68 per cent of his passes for 1,508 yards, registering five touchdowns and accumulating 95 rushing across seven games to help guide Sherbrooke to the Dunsmore Cup playoffs. He passed for 236 yards to help lead the program to its first victory in 35 meetings over national powerhouse Laval.
Getting experience with “the size of the guys, the speed of the game, and a few tweaks in the rules with the new hash marks – all of that is going to make me a better player,” says Robichaud, a native of Sainte-Julie, Que. “Just sitting in the meetings, absorbing as much information as I can to take that with me into my remaining years of college.”
Ford certainly benefitted from his pair of internships; with the Montreal Alouettes in 2018 after his first season of university football, and then in 2019 with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
“It’s just informative,” says Ford, who hails from Niagara Falls, Ont. “You get to see how all the pro stuff works, how the practices operate, the meeting room and everything. So I feel like it’s an advantage to get to go to those, never mind two of them. So it was good because I just feel like I was a little bit above the game.”
In six games this past season, Ford completed 63.4 per cent of his passes for 1465 yards and 10 touchdowns, while adding 629 rushing yards and three scores on the ground. He won both the U Sports and OUA most outstanding player awards while being named an All-Canadian and First-Team OUA All-Star in 2021.
There has been a Canadian quarterback make his pro debut in each of the last two CFL seasons: Rourke, and his current Lions teammate Michael O’Connor, who completed passes for the Toronto Argonauts in 2019 after taking part in the internship program three times (2015, 2016 and 2018).
“I definitely think, especially with the QB internship program, there’s a lot of development that can happen with Canadian quarterbacks,” Ford says. “I can see in the future more Canadian quarterbacks getting a chance to play football, for sure.”
Learn more about the 2022 U Sports Canadian QB Internship Program.