The closest thing to an actual football game in far too long broke out at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium on Sunday.
Sure, there weren’t fans in the stands, TV cameras on the sidelines, or many other hallmarks of a sun-soaked day of CFL action, but there was an anthem for the Edmonton Elks to sing.
“Tevaun Smith did a great job of leading us in the national anthem, so I put him on the spot about five minutes beforehand and I said ‘hey, you’re singing the national anthem.’ He responded and that was a fun moment for those guys,” head coach Jaime Elizondo said of the Toronto born receiver, who enjoyed a maintenance day, but earned a place in the spotlight nonetheless
While Sunday’s scrimmage didn’t have the full pageantry of a CFL regular season game, or pre-season game for that matter, it was nonetheless a key moment on the way to August 7th and Edmonton’s home opener against the Ottawa RedBlacks.
Touchdown passes from quarterbacks Troy Williams and Taylor Cornelius to Kenny Shaw and Earnest Edwards respectively were two of the offensive highlights on the day.
“It was just a tremendous opportunity for me to showcase my talent in front of everybody and I had a lot of fun,” Edwards, a University of Maine product, said.
“Pre-season games, we need them to evaluate everybody on the football field and we won’t have that this year, so the scrimmage is where that’s got to take place.”
Along with Shaw and Edwards TD receptions, some impressive runs from former Ball State running back Walter Fletcher also stood out.
On the defensive side, a trio of interceptions impressed Elizondo, most notably Darius Williams’ pick.
“Really excited about the interceptions, because some of those were just really great jumps on the ball, especially the one by Darius Williams,” Elizondo pointed out.
All told, Sunday was a key evaluation tool heading into the final week of training camp, as Elizondo and company look to make some decisions on the roughly 20 per cent of the roster he sees as still up for grabs.
“I told those guys that if you’re disappointed in the way you played today, the fortunate part for you is you’ve got four more practices,” Elizondo said of the message he delivered post-scrimmage.
“There were some guys that had their heads down after the scrimmage, because they didn’t play as well as they had hoped, so they’ve got three or four more shots (in practice).”
With the season opener now less than two weeks away, the coaching staff will be looking to balance a need for evaluation with making sure the team’s projected starters are firing on all cylinders once the bright lights come on.
“We’re at that point where we have to gauge where each individual starter is at. Some guys that maybe came late need a little more work,” Elizondo explained.
“We’ve got to get the ones ready to roll for August 7th, while at the same time define the remaining part of our roster.”
For more coverage from today’s scrimmage, click here for quarterback Trevor Harris’ media availability.