CFL 'Quick Kicks' 2025: Week 14

By Chris Lawton

Welcome to week 14 of our weekly review of each week of the 2025 CFL season. ‘Quick Kicks’ brings you week to week news of how the games went, scores, surprises, and a general feel of ‘what we learned’ from the games. Following on from the three-game slate for Labour Day, we were back to four games this past weekend.

Let’s dive right in. The first game of the weekend saw the Ottawa RedBlacks hosting the BC Lions. On a wet and windy night in Canada’s capital holding their blackout game it was the home team who took the victory with a comeback 34-33 win with just seconds left on the clock. Or should that be a ‘Crumback’ as backup QB Dustin Crum, starting for the injured Dru Brown, led the rally? It was a struggle early on, but he finished the game 24 of 32 for 301 yards and a touchdown and ran the ball 8 times for 69 yards and 2 touchdowns.

Before the RedBlacks went on a bye we noted, ‘they really need to get going earlier in games’ as they had fallen behind by double digits to Edmonton and mounted a failed comeback. They were lucky the comeback came off here against BC as this was now the fourth game in a row in which they had fallen behind by double digits early on. In fact, they were 13-3 behind at halftime and 27-10 behind in the third quarter after Seven McGee went for a 93-yard punt return touchdown. BC’s first kick-return score of the season looked like it had set up BC for the win at that point, but Ottawa responded with a touchdown drive straight away to stop the momentum snowballing.

Even as Ottawa mounted another of their many comebacks this season, it still looked set to fall short. Especially after Whyte’s fourth field goal of the night meant that Ottawa needed a touchdown after the three-minute warning and the Lions’ defence forced Ottawa into a turnover on downs. Having gone 4 for 4 up to this point Sean Whyte then had the chance to put it away by making it a two-score game. Instead, he missed a 46-yard field goal attempt, and Kalil Pimpleton made a 38-yard return. Further enhanced by an unnecessary roughness penalty on the Lions. That led to the winning drive and as this is the first of a home-and-home for these two teams BC will have plenty to focus on for next week.

One area the Lions need to clean up on before the rematch is penalties. That unnecessary roughness penalty at a key moment was just one of nine penalties for 105 yards, gifting Ottawa chances to compete. They will also want to improve on their red zone stats as Ottawa had 4 visits to the red zone and had 4 scores whilst BC only scored once in their two visits.

Players who put in notable performances here included Justin McInnes of the Lions who had 7 receptions for 148 yards and a touchdown and James Butler who had 18 carries for 77 yards and a touchdown as well as 1 catch for 12 yards.

The result moved Ottawa to 4-8 and dropped BC to 5-7. If it comes to a potential west team crossover in the playoffs this year, then next week’s rematch could be crucial for the Leos to win.

The second game of the weekend had the Hamilton Tiger-Cats traveling to face the Montreal Alouettes. This was a chance to get some clarity atop the East Division.  Which was certainly provided as the Ticats went clear atop the East at 7-5 thanks to a dominant 26-9 win here.

This was another wet and rainy game, and Hamilton played that to perfection by relying largely on their ground game. In total they had 234 yards rushing here, over double the 108 the Alouettes managed. Most of that went through Greg Bell who had 20 carries for 156 yards and a touchdown rushing (as well as 4 catches for 29 yards).

The Ticats also got another rushing touchdown, from an unexpected source, as QB Bo Levi Mitchell ran in a 14-yard score too. It’s not something you see often from Mitchell, so it really stood out. To give that some context, this was Mitchell’s first rushing touchdown since 2015, and his run took him over 1,000 career yards on the ground in his thirteenth year in the league.

The Hamilton D also stood firm here holding Alouette’s QB James Morgan to just 55-yards passing through three quarters, and 138 yards passing overall. All nine of Montreal’s points came in the first half, all courtesy of their kicker, Jose Carlos Maltos. After that the Hamilton D continued to dominate, holding the home side scoreless in the second half.

After this win Hamilton has now won the season series against all the East Division teams except Toronto. That series is currently split 1-1 so their deciding game later in the year could be huge for both teams.

The third game of the weekend was that classic second leg of the Labour Day/Banjo Bowl home-and-home contest between the visiting  Saskatchewan Roughriders and hometown Winnipeg Blue Bombers. For the first time since 2018 it was the visiting Roughriders who won this contest, taking a 21-13 victory. This is also the first time the Roughriders have swept the Labour Day/Banjo Bowl series since 2018 and moves them to 10-2 while dropping Winnipeg to 6-6. Having now taken the season series, Saskatchewan find themselves with clear daylight atop the West Division standings and are now hot favourites to book a home playoff date.

Although he did miss on an extra point, Saskatchewan kicker Brett Lauther had a big hand, (or should that be foot?) in the win here hitting on 5 of 5 field goal attempts, whilst his Winnipeg counterpart Sergio Castillo had an unusual down game and only hit on 2 of 4 attempts. 15-6 between the kickers on a game won by 8 points was key here.

Not that this looked good for the visitors at halftime. At the intermission they were down 13-6 and the passing game was mostly nullified as Trevor Harris had only hit on 50% of his passes, an unusually low rate for him. The second half saw the script flipped, and like Hamilton had done with Montreal in the previous game, Saskatchewan held the home team to zero points in the second half.

Zach Collaros left the game injured, but before that he was 9 of 15 for 165 yards with 1 touchdown and 2 picks. Backup Chris Streveler was also picked off twice going 5 of 9 for 39 yards with 2 picks. Tevaughn Campbell led the pick-fest for the Riders D with 2 interceptions in the final quarter of play. Those picks were critical too, as he picked off Streveler late in the game as the Blue Bombers were looking to make the comeback, and then after another Lauther field goal gave the Riders an 8-point lead before picking off Streveler on a Hail Mary to end it all.

If the team are looking for a new target to aim for, they could go 11-2 for only the second time in team history with a win against Montreal next week.

Finally, having seen Collaros go off injured once more, I think we can all echo the sentiments of Winnipeg Head Coach Mike O’Shea who said in his post-game press conference, “I’m not worried his ability to be consistently on the field. I’m worried about Zach the person.” Fingers crossed there then.

The final game of the weekend was in Edmonton, where the Calgary Stampeders faced the Edmonton Elks. The second leg of the Battle of Alberta went to the Elks with a convincing 31-19 upset of Calgary.

The centrepiece of the win was Elks running back Justin Rankin. Last week he was held to 48 yards on 13 carries in the Labour Day Classic defeat to the Stamps. This week however he broke free for 204 yards on 16 carries and 2 touchdowns. He had four rushes of over 20 yards, one 90-yard run for a touchdown, (the longest touchdown run for Edmonton since Jim Germany in the 1970s), and became only the second player to run for over 200 yards in franchise history, joining Sean Millington who achieved the feat in 1999.

Once again this was a game where one team led early before the other took over as Calgary were up 9-4 after the first quarter of play. It was with about 10 minutes of the half left to play that Rankin broke off his 90-yard touchdown run, and the Elks never really looked back after that. That touchdown run was the first major allowed by the Calgary D in eight quarters of play, so the breakthrough was huge physically and psychologically too.

Cody Fajardo was steady under center, going 16 of 21 for 153 yards and a touchdown, and carrying the ball 3 times for 25 yards too. On the other side, Vernon Adams Jr was sacked four times and went 15 of 29 for 229 yards before being pulled when the game was no longer in doubt.

Edmonton have now won four of their last five games and move to 5-7 whilst Calgary drop to 8-4. In fact, if you take the 10-2 Roughriders out of the equation, every team in the CFL sits somewhere between 8-4 and 4-8 right now with every game likely to have an impact from here on in to the end of the season on whether teams make the playoffs, if we have a crossover team and who will be playing at home in the postseason if they do make it.

There have been some unexpected results in the past few weeks to really shake things up, and it all makes for a potentially very exciting late season for three down fans to enjoy.

Looking ahead: Week 15 starts with the Tiger-Cats hosting the Blue Bombers in the early hours of Saturday morning. The best game for UK based fans to watch timewise though will be the Edmonton Elks against the Toronto Argonauts at 8:00PM UK time on Saturday. That said, all the games are available free on CFL+. The league’s free streaming service is a terrific way to check out some CFL action and see what you think of it. They are also available to catch up the next morning so there is every chance to see some three-down action.

Week 14 MOP's:

O – Justin Rankin RB, Edmonton Elks: 16 carries for 204 yards and 1 touchdown.

D – Tevaughn Campbell DB, Saskatchewan Roughriders: 2 interceptions.

ST – Seven McGee WR/KR Ottawa RedBlacks: 7 punt returns for 142 yards, 1 touchdown; 5 kick returns for 107 yards.

Interdivisional Standings 2025 This Week: East Division 1 West Division 0

Interdivisional Standings 2025 season: East Division 9 West Division 16

CHRIS LAWTON

CFL ANALYST

Chris originally started following the NFL with the ‘first wave’ of fans when it was shown on Channel 4 in the 1980’s. He has been a keen supporter of the Miami Dolphins since 1983. Chris first encountered the CFL in 2016 and instantly fell in love with the Canadian game. He has been writing about the CFL 2017. Chris has a degree in history, postgraduate degree in librarianship and can be found on twitter as @CFLfanUK

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