At least 2 Canadians will win Monday's CFP national championship game
Stevenson Bone becomes Alberta's new head football coach
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Welcome to College Football Playoff national championship week!
Heading south ✈️
Five Canadians will play in the CFP national title on Monday. Three defensive linemen are on Notre Dame’s roster: Armel Mukam (La Prairie, Que.), Sean Sevillano Jr. (Winnipeg) and Devan Houstan (Mississauga, Ont.). The other two play for Ohio State: tight end Maxence LeBlanc (St-Bruno, Que.) and punter Anthony Venneri (Hamilton, Ont.). Mukam, wearing jersey No. 88 for Notre Dame, will likely see the most action, primarily on special teams. No matter what, a Canadian from an off-island Montreal suburb will win — either Mukam or LeBlanc.
TE and fullback Rohan Jones (Montreal) has transferred to Arkansas. The former Montana State H-back scored nine touchdowns this season, which ranks tied for second among all NCAA TEs.
Twin defensive linemen Tyclean and Tycoolhill Luman (Montreal) have transferred to FAU. Both redshirted their freshman seasons at Rutgers this past year after playing high school football in Miami — a 38-mile drive from their new Boca Raton, Florida school.
Four Canadian NCAA players competed at the annual College Gridiron Showcase in Fort Worth, Texas this past weekend: North Texas linebacker Jaylen Smith (Hamilton, Ont.), Kansas offensive lineman Dre Doiron, ULM OL Sam Carson (Calgary) and Montana DL Hayden Harris (Mill Creek, Washington), who’s a dual-citizen. 3DownNation’s JC Abbott recapped the event, including an analysis of the 12 U Sports football players mentioned below (scroll).
For a more detailed CFB breakdown, read my latest Canuck U:
Back north: U Sports offseason headlines 🍁
The University of Alberta found their new head football coach: Stevenson Bone. The Golden Bears’ new boss spent the last three seasons as UBC’s offensive coordinator after three years at Guelph as the Gryphons’ running backs coach and manager of football operations. Oh, and we won a Vanier Cup together in 2017 when he was in his final season quarterbacking at Western — no biggie!
Twelve U Sports football players competed at the CGS alongside four of their fellow countrymen in the NCAA.
Laurier QB Taylor Elgersma
Laurier wide receiver Ethan Jordan
Queen’s DL Darien Newell
Queen’s DL Silas Hubert
Queen’s defensive back Ashton Miller-Melancon
Western DB Jackson Findlay
Ottawa DB Eric Cumberbatch
Windsor LB Devin Veresuk
Montreal DL Jeremiah Ojo
Windsor DL Kolade Amusan
Regina OL Connor Klassen
York OL Brandon Davies-Lyons
Follow me on social media to get more in-depth insights on Canadian CFBers:
Student shout-outs 📢
I got my start in multimedia storytelling and sports journalism at a student newspaper. It’s important for me to spread the love to those student journos finding new leads on campus fields across the country, just like I did a short time ago.
OUA
The Western Gazette (Western)
*My old stomping grounds!
The Cord (Laurier)
Imprint (Waterloo)
The Silhouette (McMaster)
The Varsity (Toronto)
Excalibur (York)
The Queen’s Journal (Queen’s)
The Fulcrum (Ottawa)
The Charlatan (Carleton)
Canada West
The Ubyssey (UBC)
The Gateway (Alberta)
The Gauntlet (Calgary)
The Sheaf (Saskatchewan)
The Manitoban (Manitoba)
RSEQ
Impact Campus (Laval)
*Covered Rouge et Or football in Vanier Cup
Quartier Libre (Montreal)
Concordia
The McGill Tribune (McGill)
Le Collectif (Sherbrooke)
AUS
The Xaverian Weekly (StFX)
The Campus (Bishop’s)
The Athenaeum (Acadia)
The SMU Journal (Saint Mary’s)
ICYMI: Read last week’s Pressure Package newsletter
More Canadian college football coverage
The media covers U Sports football at a level not seen since theScore’s former television program “University Rush” covered Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS, the former name for U Sports) football until the early 2010s.