Redmen and Stingers headed by young coaches as football season kicks off
A new season of university football kicks off tonight and for the McGill Redmen it could not come soon enough.
The program is eager to put a forgettable 2014 campaign behind them..
Off the field McGill had three players charged in two separate cases (all charges were eventually dropped). On the field the head coach quit mid-season and the team didn't win a game.
It appears that desperate times call for desperate measures because to bring the program back to respectability McGill has taken a page out of their greatest rivals, the Corcordia Stingers, playbook.
McGill hired Ronald Hilaire, a first time CIS head coach with a defensive background as a player. Just like Concordia did after its winless season in 2013 when it hired Mickey Donovan, a first time CIS head coach with a defensive background as a player.
Concordia hired Donovan when he was 33 years old. At 30, Ronald Hilaire is the youngest head coach in the country. He agrees that hiring younger university football head coaches could be a new trend.
"I'm still in the now with (the students), because I'm not that far removed from being a player so I understand their reality," Hilaire says.
If Hilaire can do for McGill what Mickey Donovan did for Concordia, the Redmen faithful will have plenty to cheer for at Percival Molson Memorial Stadium this season.
Donovan took over when the Stingers program was at rock bottom. The team had a winless 2013 season and needed a new direction.
He immediately started winning. The Stingers won its first four games with Donovan in charge and ended the season with a 5 and 3 record. It was Concordia's first winning season since 2008.
It appears McGill was paying attention.
Expectations for 2015 season
Expecting Hilaire to turn around the Redmen in the same way Donovan did with the Stingers might be a tall ask.
He is inheriting a much younger team than Donovan did with the Stingers a year ago. On the Redmen 80-man roster there are 37 freshmen and 16 sophomores.
"We're going to be a very competitive team. We're going to go out there and we're going to try and out work everybody," Hilaire said.
Meanwhile, at Concordia the jury is still out on if Donovan's success in year one will carry over into into this season.
The program has a significant number of holes to fill in the starting line up. Only 13 of 24 starters are back from last year and there is a flood of rookies coming in. In all there are 50 new players on the roster, 41 are straight out of high school or CEGEP.
"If we can do the same (as last year) or better is what we are hoping for. With a young team, as a coaching staff we have to be patient, we've got to prepare them," Donovan said.
The 2015 CIS Football season kicks off tonight with two games in Montreal. The McGill Redmen host the Bishops Gaiters at Percival Molson and the Concordia Stingers host the Sherbrooke Vert et Or at Loyola. Both games start at 7 pm.
