Rams oust Bisons in Dobie’s swan song

Brian Dobie’s final game as head coach of the Manitoba Bisons was not the dream finish his supporters had hoped for.

Instead of walking off the field as Vanier Cup champions later this month, the seventh-ranked Bisons were eliminated from the national title hunt with a heart-breaking 28-25 loss to the Regina Rams in Canada West university football semifinal action before 2,500 fans at Princess Auto Stadium Saturday afternoon.

“It’s tough to express,” said the 71-year-old Dobie, who is retiring after 29 seasons as Bisons helm. “I knew this moment would come. Intellectually, I knew this moment would come that we’re either gonna lose or we were gonna win the national championship. That is exactly what you’re in when you’re in the playoffs.”

The result was an upset to be sure.

Manitoba was the regular-season conference champions with a 7-1 record while fourth-place Regiina squeaked into the post-season with a 3-5 mark. The Bisons won the only regular-season meeting between the teams, 22-13, on Sept. 28.

But turnovers — three crucial fumbles in the second half — spelled disaster for the Bisons on Saturday.

With the Bisons trailing 10-8 early in the third quarter, star tailback Breydon Stubbs coughed up the ball that was recovered by Keegan Kaytor on the Regina two-yard line.

Only minutes later, Manitoba punt returner Michael O’Shea fumbled on his own 38-yard line. Regina’s Kaeden Brennan pounced on the ball and the Rams offence turned it into an 11-yard touchdown reception by D’Sean Mimbs, allowing Regina to tie the game, 17-17.

In the fourth quarter, with the Bisons leading 19-18 and driving for another score, receiver AK Gassama was separated from the ball and Jackson Sombachon recovered it on the Manitoba 52-yard line.

“It was the No. 1 offence in the conference versus the No. 1 defence and and if you’re putting the ball on the floor in playoff games, that’s the kiss of death,” said Dobie. “To Regina’s credit, they created those fumbles and their defence is No. 1 in the conference for a reason.”

Despite those ball security issues, Manitoba held a 25-21 lead after Stubbs, who finished with 134 yards on 15 carries, scampered 58 yards for a touchdown with only 4:59 remaining in the game.

But Regina quarterback Noah Pelletier promptly drove his offence down the field, capping a 11-play, 101-yard drive with a 16-yard TD strike to Nicholas Sirleaf with 16 seconds left on the clock.

“This whole season we haven’t been losing to teams by much and we understood that we have the talent and the right players to win games,” said Sirleaf. “It’s just that we didn’t put the pieces together right away. We started to do that later in the season and as you can see, now we’re here. We won it.”

With only seconds left, Regina defender Garret Hatchard intercepted Bisons quarterback Jackson Tachinski on the Rams’ 37 to snuff out Manitoba’s final drive.

“Everybody in this program pushed and gave their effort and gave all they had,” said Stubbs. “I’m so proud of everyone here, even though it’s not the result we wanted. (The turnovers) were just mental errors and just we shot ourselves in the foot and we couldn’t recover from it.”

Tachinski went 14-for-25 and 178 yards passing. He also added 67 rushing yards and one touchdown on nine carries.

Pelletier, meanwhile, completed 19-of-27 for 207 yards and a pair of majors.

The Rams will travel to Saskatoon to play the Saskatchewan Huskies in next week’s Hardy Cup final.

The third-seeded Huskies beat the No. 2 UBC Thunderbirds 38-33 in Saturday’s other semifinal.

“I’ve got so much respect for Brian — it’s through the roof — and he means a lot to me,” said Rams head coach mark McConkey of beating Dobie. “This win is actually pretty bittersweet. I’m happy for our team, but I obviously I’m sad for Brian. At the end of day, it’s playoff football.

“We haven’t won a playoff games since 2012 but we talked about how we had to take care of the football and had to get them turn it over. And that’s exactly what we did. Our defence just played so great.”

Dobie said he was proud of the 2024 Bisons, calling them the “most unselfish team I’ve ever coached.”

U of M officials want to work quickly to fill the void created by Dobie’s retirement. Applications are due by Monday.

“It’ll be weird getting up tomorrow morning and having coffee with my wife and we’ll look at each other and go, ‘Well, I guess we’re retired now.’ And you know what? It didn’t end with a whimper, it ended with a bang,” said Dobie. “Our guys fought to the end…

“It was an awesome football game in terms of pure fight by both teams. I think that for me, selfishly, that’s a great way to go out in anyone’s career — that your team battled to the end. These guys represented all the teams that I’ve ever coached.”

Stubbs, who has a year of eligibility remaining, was sad to see the end of an era.

“It’s gonna change the dynamic next year,” he said. “I’m gonna miss him.”

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Mike Sawatzky
Reporter

Mike Sawatzky is a sports reporter at the Free Press. He has been working at the newspaper since 2003. Read more about Mike.

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