Before last week, it had been sixteen years since the Mount Allison Mounties won a playoff game. And after a 1-4 start to the season, few could have expected this team from a small university in the marshlands of New Brunswick would be in contention for a conference title.
Yet here we are.
It’s been a big week for the program heading into Saturday’s Loney Bowl matchup against perennial powerhouse Saint Mary’s. This past Thursday, running back Jordan Botel, a Hec Creighton nominee, was named AUS MVP, while head coach Kelly Jeffrey, the former Mt.A assistant who took over as head coach in 2008, brought home his second Coach of the Year award in four years. If everything goes the Mounties way, that’ll just be the extra point on what has been a program-altering season.
With the AUS Conference championship game set to kick off this afternoon in Halifax, the Mounties are poised to make the biggest leap the team has made in nearly two decades. A program that’s done it differently, by both design and necessity, Jeffrey’s team is out to make a name for itself on the biggest stage in Atlantic university sports.
I should get this out of the way early: As a Mount Allison alumni, I admit it’s pretty wild just to be writing this story. And it’s a testament to how far this program has come in a few short years.
My first year at the Sackville, NB institution came in 2007, and I’ll never forget the first time I saw the Mounties take the field. I had never visited the campus before enrolling (Mt.A was the only school that accepted me, so it made the decision easy). I remember walking to my dorm on the first day I arrived passing the MacAuley football field, arms full of luggage. The Mounties were beginning practice, and having never had a football team to call my own in high school, I stopped in my tracks and marveled at the speed and power of the game up close. Man, these guys are gooood, I thought. But as I asked around in the days that followed it was clear my assessment was premature, to say the least.
Turns out the Mounties hadn’t won a game in two years. And while there was talent on the roster- headlined by Gary Ross, the AUS great who would shatter the single-season all-purpose yard record that season and finish his career 3rd on the all-time CIS receptions list- that season would mark the third straight winless campaign.
But the dark days went considerably further back. It had been a rough decade for the Mounties, the low point coming in the form of a 105-0 drubbing at the hands of Saint Mary’s in 2001. This was a once-proud franchise, one that had owned the AUS through the early ‘90s, producing CFL Hall-of-Fame running back Eric Lapoint and appearing in the ’91 Vanier Cup.
But in 2007, that seemed like a hundred lifetimes ago.
Heading into the 2008 season and in desperate need for a change, Jeffrey was handed control of the team. “As a person he was still the same,” recalls Ross, who graduated in 2011 and played under Jeffrey while he was both an assistant and head coach, “but now he was in a position of power to implement the things he felt were really important for a team, reinforcing ideas like integrity, work ethic and commitment.”
Jeffrey came to Sackville, where his wife is from, in 2006 after coaching at the NCAA ranks in the United States, including a successful stint as the QB coach at UNLV.
“When I took over my thought was that MT.A could be this good, and it was just going to take some time,” says Jeffrey following yesterday’s walkthrough in Halifax. “In my mind I thought it would happen a little bit sooner, that we could attract good players with our academic reputation and get on the right track quickly. But you just can never predict when everything will come together.”
In 2010, two seasons into Jeffrey’s tenure and four years after catching that first practice, I watched from the sidelines as the Mounties hosted their first playoff game in more than ten years. It was a miserable, grey, rainy day. Perfect for football. The biggest and rowdiest crowd I’d seen at MacAuley Field were there, too, and for the week leading up to the big game the whole town rallied around the club like an army ready to mobilize on command. But considering their recent history, nobody was altogether shocked when the Mounties dropped that game (in brutal fashion by the way- losing in quadruple overtime).
Still, on that mess of a field you could see the culture changing before our eyes. The Mounties were good. They were tough. Jeffrey’s squad wasn’t going to lay down for anybody.
The program lost a ton of talent that summer- linebacker Akwasi Antwi and O-lineman Mike Filer went off to the CFL, All-Star receiver and safety Bradley Daye signed a pro contract with a club in France, and upon graduation Ross was accepted to a dental program in Detroit, near his hometown of Windsor- but CIS prospects had taken notice.
A massive recruiting class of forty freshman were brought in in 2011, including Botel and star defensive lineman Jacob LeBlanc. And while they would again go 0-8 that season, Jeffrey had a group he knew he could mold into a winner.
“The coaches and I have had a chance to work with that core since they came into the program,” says Jeffrey, “so there’s some professionalism and maturity within the group that’s really started to set in this year and they’ve maintained their focus throughout. And for the first time in a long time, there’s continuity and stability within the program.”
There’s something about Sackville that is perfectly suited for football. A quaint, sleepy town void of the distractions of a big city, it’s the ideal environment for a sport built on constant preparation and unwavering dedication. And despite Mount Allison’s reputation as an academically-focused school with Jeffery and his staff have turned what could be a perceived negative into an overwhelming positive.
“When you first get there you have to understand that the program has no money,” says Mike Filer, now a member of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Without the financial resources of the bigger programs in the conference, Jeffrey has to go about recruiting differently.
“So his whole philosophy is: ‘We’re not worried about top recruits. We’re just going to go out there and out-work everybody, and we’re getting guys who will buy in and accomplish our goal.’” Filer says. “At Mount A we don’t have the big stands or big stadium. We just have that field- they put some lines on it and that’s it. And that’s what it’s all about: football.”
“We prepare our kids for the notion that “You’re here for two things: school and football.’ There’s no number three,” says Jeffrey. “If you’re here you’ve made a commitment for a short period of time in your life to better yourself on and off the field, and I think guys who come here really prepare themselves mentally for that before they even arrive.”
With that in mind, it’s clear that the program attracts a specific kind of person.
“He brings in high-character guys,” Ross says, “guys who are going to come in and work their tails off. His whole thing has always been: do it the right way. No shortcuts. You come in every day, bring your lunchbox, and work. He’s not bringing in divas, guys who think they’re too big above the work ethic.”
You don’t have to look any further than Botel, says Ross. “He’s one of the most humble kids you’ll ever meet,” Ross says. “He just opitimizes what the team is about right now.”
And right now, that’s winning, a new reality that Ross says will completely change the way Jeffrey and his staff attract new talent going forward.
“Before the thing they would sell guys with is: ‘We’re rebuilding something and you want to be part of that process. And, you can start right away’,” says Ross, the AUS’s all-time career leader in receptions and receiving yards. “Now they can sell guys on the fact that ‘Were not rebuilding anymore. We’re here. And you can come and be a part of this new winning tradition we’re starting.’
To show their support and celebrate that new tradition, Ross and a big group of Mounties alumni have made the trip to Halifax for today’s game (“As soon as I heard they made it, I told my wife ‘Honey, I have to fly out,” recalls Ross. “She understood.”)
“Having been there to lay the ground work with guys like [former QB Kelly] Hughes, Bradley Daye, it’s nice to see the team striving.”
In the weeks leading up to the playoffs, an article written last year began re-surfacing amongst players, past and current. It was written by a long-time AUS writer and called for Mount Allison, after another losing campaign, to axe the football program altogether.
“Stop the slaughter, the kids deserve better” the writer penned. Talk about bulletin board material. “I know It’s been inspiration for a lot of them during this run,” says Filer, who learned about the Mounties’ Loney Bowl appearance while on the road in Saskatchewan. “I know it ate at me when I read it, and I’m glad that everyone can see what this program can be.”
“You look at a lot of the players we’ve recruited and gotten into the program, they’ve finally made that happen,” says Jeffrey, “It was just something that needed time to take hold.”
Two wins from the Vanier Cup, there is still plenty of work to be done. But Jeffrey knows his team is peaking at the right time. “The rankings don’t mean much this time of year,” he says. “If you can keep improving and remain hot once the playoffs start, you have a real chance to make some noise.” So here we are. A renewed sense of Mountie pride emanated from the streets of Sackville, a football program left for dead now resurrected. What a long, strange trip it’s been.