CFL.ca Staff
TORONTO — The regular season continues with Week #3 games kicking off Thursday night. Keep yourself updated on CFL action with important milestones and statistics before this weekend’s games.
TOR @ MTL
The teams have faced each other 23 times 2004, with the Alouettes boasting a 16-7-0 record over the Boatmen.
Anthony Calvillo needs one touchdown pass to pass Damon Allen and become the CFL all-time leader in touchdown passes.
Noel Prefontaine has made all six of FG attempts in 2011 stretching his current streak to 11 in a row. His last miss came at the end of the first half on Oct 15/10 from 58 yards out.
Jeremaine Copeland needs 16 yards to surpass Robert Gordon (9,543) and move into the top 20 among all-time receivers.
CGY @ WPG
Last week Calgary converted nine of fifteen (60%) 2nd-and-long situations against BC into first downs. The league average so far is 35%.
Joffrey Reynolds needs 28 yards to move past Leo Lewis (8,861) to move into eighth place all-time in rushing yards.
Buck Pierce reached 10,000 passing yards for his CFL career after picking up 165 last week.
Fred Reid needs 22 yards to move past Hall-of-Famer Dave Raimey into sixth spot on Winnipeg’s all-time list of leading rushers.
SSK @ HAM
The Roughriders and Tiger-Cats both sit at 0-2, so both teams have a lot at stake on Saturday’s game.
The teams have a history of successful offences when facing each other. A 1962 match-up sits at second place in all-time most touchdowns in a single game.
Ti-Cat Renauld Williams holds the 2011 record for most tackles at 15.
BC @ EDM
The teams have faced each other 22 times 2004, with the Lions holding a 13-9-0 record over the Esks.
Geroy Simon needs 98 yards to become the fourth CFL receiver to reach 14,000 career receiving yards.
Paul McCallum needs 10 points to move past David Ridgway (2,374) into sixth place among all-time scorers.
Edmonton has averaged 468 yards of net offence in 2011 up from 343 in 2010 and turned a -23 T/O ratio in 2010 into a +6 mark this season so far.
Results from Week #2
Anthony Calvillo reduced the number of career TD passes needed to become the all-time CFL leader with five more against the Riders last week. He now has 394 to pull into a tie with Damon Allen.
Damon Allen’s 394th touchdown pass was thrown July 26 2007 to Argos running back Jeff Johnson.
Ricky Ray and Anthony Calvillo have been the dominant QBs thus far combining for a pass efficiency rating of 134 after two weeks. The other six starting quarterbacks have a combined 74 rating.
Winning clearly does not correlate with taking fewer penalties in 2011. The three teams with the most penalty yards after two weeks are Winnipeg (209), Edmonton (163) and Montreal (155) and they are a combined 6-0.
Turnovers do correlate to wins however as 2-0 Winnipeg, Edmonton and Montreal are a combined +13 while the three 0-2 teams are -7 as a group.
Lead changes have been rare in 2011 through the first eight games yet the team scoring first has gone on to win just four times. In only one game thus far has there been more than one lead change (Toronto at Calgary, Week #1 – 3 times) and there have been just six in total.
Calgary rookie kicker Rene Paredes made a 50-yard field goal in his first CFL game (and first attempt). This duplicated the feat first accomplished by Bernie Ruoff of Winnipeg on August 12, 1975 against Calgary (a 58-yarder). Carlos Huerta of Las Vegas also hit from 50+ yards in his debut game of July 8, 1994 (54 yards) on his first-ever FG attempt in a 32-26 win over Sacramento.
Toronto’s 32-yard gain on a third down fake punt is anything but a surprise. Last season they tried 5 times and were successful on all of them. The rest of the league tried only a total of 11 and made 7 first downs.
CFL defences have been dominant thus far in 2011. Tough defence has limited average gain on first down to just 6.3 yards, down from 6.9 yards per play in 2010.