Marshall Erichsen and the University of Regina Rams know the competition will be tough in the Canada West football conference.
"It's always a dog fight," Erichsen said on the SportsCage. "You never know what a team is going to bring until you're there. This is my third season now and I've been in some games where you can never anticipate what will happen on any given week. You gotta prepare like you're playing the best team that you could be playing again because anything can happen."
The Rams won their first game of the season against the University of Calgary Dinos 43-36 in overtime. Erichsen rushed 27 times for 113 yards and broke the program's single-game record for most touchdowns scored with four.
"I had some personal goals like being a Canada West all-star, All-Canadian, trying to crack those levels of my collegiate career, but I haven't really been thinking about it too much," Erichsen explained. "I'm focusing on the season as a whole, getting back to the Hardy Cup, Vanier's here, that's the biggest goal for me and for everyone on this team."
Late in Week 1, Calgary managed to come back from nine points down and forced the game into overtime.
"Honestly, I was pretty calm. I knew the situation and what was going to happen. I knew that they scored, they're going to go for two, they're going to try and go for the rogue," Erichsen said. "How it all played out was a little bit of a miscommunication. I was trying to stop the rogue from happening and it came short, but that's crazy about Canadian football, it can happen so fast."
Erichsen has a plan to prevent a rogue incident from happening again, similar to what occurred in Calgary.
"I think I line up at the back of the end zone," Erichsen explained. "I think either way, he tried to kick it away from me, but at least then I know where I need to defend."
Erichsen is in his third year with the Rams. He redshirted with the team in 2022. Last season, he played 10 games for Regina, rushed 83 times for 491 yards and two touchdowns and also accumulated 18 receptions for 229 receiving yards. He was part of the Rams team that won the 87th Hardy Cup in 2024 beating the University of Saskatchewan Huskies 19-14.
Meanwhile, the Regina Rams play their home opener against the University of Alberta on Friday.
"Alberta's defence is a fast-motor team, they're hard-hitting and they like to send pressure a lot, so we're preparing for that," Erichsen said. "I think we have a good game plan in place on how we can exploit some of the things that they do. It's all going to come down to who wants it more every play because they're well coached and are a strong, fast-hitting team. We have to match that intensity and maybe raise the bar one or two notches so we can win this game."
Listen to the pre-game show with Brendan McGuire at 6:45 p.m. and he will have the game call at 7 p.m. from Leibel Field.
