The Varsity Blues football team fell to 1–6 after a big loss to the Western Mustangs at the Varsity Stadium on October 11. U of T needed a win to keep playoff hopes alive, but the Mustangs were overpowering, showing why they’re the highest-scoring football team in Canada. 

The Blues haven’t beaten the Mustangs since their 24–16 Yates Cup win in 1993, which led to their Vanier Cup victory in 1993. Playoff hopes this year have been dashed, with U of T sitting at 10th place in the conference.

What happened?

Before the game, an on-field ceremony celebrating the graduating Blues players added an emotional edge to the matchup. 

Toronto held their own initially, as Western drove down the field on their first possession but was gang-tackled by the Blues and a dropped pass led to a short field goal attempt for the visitors. The kick was missed, and Toronto returned the ball out of the endzone, keeping the score locked at 0–0 with less than 10 minutes left in the first quarter. 

From there, things quickly went sideways. The home team struggled on offence throughout the game, with a 2-and-out — failure to get a first down in two plays — forcing them to punt the ball. It didn’t take the visitors long to draw first blood with a hard inside run by Western’s Keanu Yazbeck for a touchdown with seven minutes left in the first quarter. 

Toronto couldn’t get any momentum on offence and was again forced to punt. The Mustangs marched down the field and scored with a dart thrown to Seth Robertson in the endzone. A rouge from the ensuing kickoff made it 15–0 for Western at the end of the quarter. The Mustangs came out blazing in the second quarter, scoring 26 straight points. 

The Western offence was dominant all night, racking up 443-yards of offence to Toronto’s 187 by game’s end. Toronto had some second-quarter highlights, including sure-handed Blues receiver Chris Joseph’s catch over the middle of the pitch that protected the team from a big hit, but the team’s efforts were not enough to put points on the board.

The game was out of reach by halftime, despite hard running by Blues’ tailback Jack Nyrose who finished with 52-yards on 12 carries. Both teams made quarterback substitutions in the second half to give game experience to the backups, and Blues’ Sam Colby filled in admirably for Kaleb O’Donoghue — completing 11 of 14 passes for 103-yards. 

Quarterback Kaleb O’Donoghue surveys the pitch for options. JASON WANG/THE VARSITY

What’s next? 

There’s still some reason for optimism: the Blues showed their grit against a stronger opponent. 

Senior defensive back Kinsale Philip remains hopeful of heading into Ottawa next week for Toronto’s final game against the Gee-Gees. “The message this week is just to play as fast as possible, as hard [as possible], and believe in ourselves… anybody has a chance to win, and together when we have all that belief, that’s when we win,” he said. 

Defeating their opponent will go a long way to building this team’s confidence for the offseason.

The team played their final game of the season on October 19, falling 7–49 at the University of Ottawa and ending the season with a 1–7 record — 10th out of 11 teams in the OUA.