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September 26, 2016

About last game …

Quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell during a game on Sept. 24, 2016 (Photo by Canadian Press/Larry MacDougal)

Here’s a closer look at Saturday’s nail-biting 36-34 victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers:

Keep rolling

For the first time since 2005, a Canadian Football League team has won 10 straight games in the same season.

Calgary’s run of victories reached 10 on Saturday and the Stamps joined the 2005 BC Lions and the 2001 Bombers as the only teams this century to rattle off that many wins in a row.

It’s the third such same-season winning streak in club history as the Stamps teams in 1948 and 1993 also accomplished the feat.

Speaking of those 1948 Stamps, this year’s team has matched that year’s edition by going 12 games in a row without losing. The 2016 Stamps’ 10-game winning streak was preceded by a tie and, before that, another win while the 1948 squad famously went 12-0 in a 12-game regular season.

Calgary needs one more victory to lock up a home playoff date while three wins in the final five games of the regular-season schedule would allow the Stamps to clinch the West Division title.

Passing the West test

Incredibly, the Stamps are now done with West Division opponents, at least until the post-season.

It’s the first time in franchise history the Red and White don’t have a regular-season meeting against a division rival after Sept. 30.

Calgary finishes 9-1 against the West, marking the first time since interdivisional play started in 1961 that the Stamps have gone through an entire season with just one loss to a division rival.

The Stamps are 25-5 against West teams over the past three regular seasons.

One big kick

The call on TSN when the Stamps took the field trailing 34-33 sounded like this:

“Fifteen seconds remaining. Calgary has a timeout left. A kicker with a questionable leg.”

It sounds harsh, but the truth of the matter is that Rene Paredes was hobbled enough on Saturday that he had to turn over kickoff duties to punter Rob Maver.

So there was understandable doubt about Paredes’ range if the Stamps could gain some yardage in the final seconds to at least try a game-winning field goal.

After a pair of quick completions — to Kamar Jorden and to Lemar Durant — and just enough time remaining for the kick attempt, the simple truth was that Paredes had to give it a go from 52 yards, which would match his career-long.

But that first 52-yarder — in a 2013 game against Toronto — was with Paredes’ leg at full strength and came in the middle of the first quarter, not in the pressure-cooker, hero-or-goat scenario of the final play of the game.

Paredes, as he has so many times in his career, shrugged off the pain on Saturday and delivered the longest game-winning kick of his career to preserve the Stamps winning (10 games) and undefeated (12) streaks.

Paredes leads the CFL with 44 field goals — including 15 from 40 or more yards — and 160 points.

Many happy returns

It was a dynamic performance by the Stamps’ Roy Finch on Saturday as he returned kickoffs and punts for a combined 297 yards.

Of that total, 205 yards came on kickoffs — the sixth-best single-game total in Stamps history.

The only other members of the Red and White to amass more than 200 kickoff-return yards in the same game are Pete Thodos (1952), Derrick Crawford (1990), Ron Hopkins (1990), Larry Taylor (2012) and Jason Armstead (2012).

Finch has a league-leading 2,014 combined return yards this season, putting him well ahead of his closest pursuer, Hamilton’s Brandon Banks (1,698).

Shooting for the Moon

Stamps quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell, like his team, is unbeaten in his last 12 starts.

Only one quarterback in CFL history has had a longer unbeaten streak as Edmonton’s Warren Moon went 13 without a loss in a stretch that carried over from 1981 to 1982.

Mitchell is currently tied with Winnipeg’s Kenny Ploen, who went 12 in a row without a loss in 1961, for the second-longest streak. It’s worth noting that Moon and Mitchell each had a tie in their streak while Ploen did not.

Mitchell is now an incredible 39-7-1 as a CFL starter.

Seeing double

You may have read that Bo Levi Mitchell passed for 355 yards in a win over the Ottawa RedBlacks in Week 13.

Well, we can update that for you — what was originally ruled a lateral to Marquay McDaniel was determined to have actually been a forward pass, so a six-yard running play became a six-yard catch, and Mitchell actually had 361 passing yards.

That’s significant mainly because Mitchell wound up throwing for the exact same number of yards against the Bombers, and two other numbers — two touchdowns, zero interceptions — also matched his statline against Ottawa.

Mitchell has passed the 4,000-yard mark for the season — it’s the second time in his CFL career he’s hit that milestone and it’s the 20th such season by a Calgary QB.

In case you missed it …

Here is more coverage from Saturday’s game:

Articles

Game story
Rene pulls through
K.J. keeps the faith
Locker-Room Blog: Marquay McDaniel

Stamps TV

Highlights
Post-game wrap-up
Game balls
Team-A-Palooza Day moments
Rocky Mountain Equipment Dependable Play of the Game
Calgary’s Air Jorden

Photos
Action shots

Other
Stats