In a game to be broadcast live on 620CKRM2, the University of Regina Rams have a shot at going 4-0 Friday night if they can pull off a road win over the University of Saskatchewan Huskies.
It's a mid-season showdown between the only two nationally ranked teams in Canada West in which the stakes couldn't be higher. The winner will finish in first-place while the loser will be in second-place at risk of falling into a log-jam in the middle part of the standings. This all-province match-up has never had a better combined record (5-1) then they do right now.
It's also the only meeting of the season between the provincial rivals, meaning whoever wins tonight will claim the all-so-important tie-breaker in the standings.
Riding a white-hot run game, the Rams have already churned out wins over Calgary, Alberta and UBC. But they still haven't faced a defence like the Huskies who have surrendered the fewest points in the conference so far.
Rams centre Riley Schick, who is also in his final year and playing his last regular season game in this rivalry, believes playing in last November's Hardy Cup has prepared he and his teammates for what to expect in a noisy, hostile Griffiths Stadium.
"We always have the silent cadence ready to go if we ever need it, you never know what they could bring out," Shick said.
"Last year we had a lot of junior guys on the offence and we may not have known each other to the extent that we needed to. This year has helped out a lot with having that long offseason where we've been able to sit down and connect with each other and understand what the running backs are thinking in the backfield and what we're thinking when we're up front. Being able to communicate better on the line throughout the whole play has helped out tremendously this entire season so far."
Friday's game features the top two ranked running backs in Canada West, Marshall Erichsen for the Rams and Regina's Ryker Frank for the Huskies.
A Rams win would mean they would only have to play .500 ball the rest of the season to guarantee themselves a finish in the standings ahead of the U of the S. But with so many layers to a big game so early in the season, Regina head coach Mark McConkey is quick to point out his team proved last fall that home-field advantage isn't the end-all and be-all when his 3-5 squad won playoff games on the road at Manitoba and Saskatchewan to capture the Hardy Cup.
It's an important game but the coach reminds everyone that the season is a marathon and not a sprint.
"There's still five games left and we could lose all of them and finish 3-5 again like last year," McConkey said. "We're really just going one week at a time and haven't really thought about playoffs and home-field. It's all about getting better each week and improving so we can go on a playoff run and peak at the right time again."
"We're excited to go against probably the best team in Canada West and see how we compete with those guys and at the end of the day, you're going to have to go through the Huskies if you want to win the Hardy Cup."
It's a match of one team riding high in the Rams 3-0 start, their best since 2002, and an angry bunch in the Huskies blowing a 17-point halftime lead in dropping a major upset to the Manitoba Bisons last week in falling to 2-1.
As the last unbeaten Canadian West team standing, the Rams are ranked fifth nationally while the Huskies have fallen to eighth.
The forecast calls for just about perfect football weather Friday night, so don't be surprised if these two high-powered running offences decide to air out the passing game a little too.
The broadcast on CKRM2 begins with the pre-game show at 6:45 p.m. and the kickoff at 7 p.m.
