SLAM! SPORTS: 2000 IN REVIEW

Summary

By JON COOK -- SLAM! Sports
TORONTO -- Playing on a sprained ankle, under the weight of a scandal and with the legend of one of the greatest teams in CIAU history looming over him, Ottawa Gee-Gees' quarterback Phil Côté came through with one of the best individual efforts the Vanier Cup has ever seen.

The 24-year-old Côté was positively dominant in his CIAU swansong, completing close to 90 per cent of his passes (16-for-18) for 275 yards and three touchdowns and rushing for two more scores, as Ottawa edged the Regina Rams 42-39 in the Vanier Cup at SkyDome on Saturday.

With his heroic effort, on a sprained left ankle that kept him out of the last two games, Côté exorcized the demons of a 39-23 loss to the UBC Thunderbirds in the 1997 Vanier Cup and finished his university football career on a positive after enduring two years of CIAU sanctions from an ineligible player scandal.

"You get this chance once in a lifetime and I just wanted to prove to everyone that I can win a Vanier Cup," said Côté after silencing some of his critics, who argued he couldn't win the big one. "It hasn't sunk in yet, but you can't ask for better."

The win was also special for Côté and the Gee-Gees as they finally stepped out from beneath the shadow of the legendary Ottawa team, led by running back Neil Lumsden, quarterback Jim Colton and receiver Rocky DiPietro, that won the program's last Vanier Cup 25 years ago.

Lumsden addressed this year's team before their Churchill Bowl victory against McMaster two weeks ago and challenged Côté and his teammates to forge their own identity and make Gee-Gees' fans forget about that 1975 squad.

"I hope to come back to the Vanier Cup as an alumnus and I hope Neil Lumsden's there," said Côté, who plans to enter the CFL draft this spring. "It's not over yet I still want to play some football and give it a shot in the CFL and if not there then maybe over in Europe."

Coming into the CIAU final the talk had been on how the Gee-Gees' top-ranked defence would stop the Rams' high-octane offence, but it was the boys from Regina who had no answer for Côté and the Ottawa offence.

Côté, who rushed 14 times for 91 yards, scored the first two touchdowns of the game on four- and three-yard scampers to give the Gee-Gees' a 14-0 lead before the seven-minute mark.

Rams' quarterback Darryl Leason, who led all rushers with 116 yards on just 12 carries, scored Regina's first Vanier Cup points on a one-yard plunge to start the second quarter, to bring the Rams within seven at 14-7.

However the Rams' defence provided little resistance after that, as Ottawa scored on its next three possessions to increase their lead to 35-10 at halftime. Regina, who allowed 36 points in their Atlantic Bowl victory against the St. Mary's Huskies, had another bad tackling day against Ottawa.

The Rams' case of butterfingers allowed Ottawa to gain great field position, keep drives alive and run down the clock.

Regina, as they did in their three previous playoff games against Calgary, Manitoba and St. Mary's, staged a valiant second-half comeback, but ran out of time.

Leason, who passed for more than 300 yards for the fourth consecutive game, cut the deficit to 18 points with a one-yard run on the Rams' first drive of the second half. The 6-4, 230-pound pivot then cut the lead to 11 with a pretty pass and catch to receiver Mike Clermont to make it 35-24. Both scores coming off Gee-Gees' fumbles; one by Côté and the other by receiver Jeremy White.

However Côté was not to be denied and put together an impressive 77-yard, eight-play drive that culminated in a 27-yard strike to Mike DiBattista for the winning score with just over 10 minutes left in the game.

"That was an audible," said Côté of the play. "We were throwing the ball short so they brought more people up and I saw what they were showing me and I said we're going over the top. Mike went down the seam and I threw a perfect ball and he made a perfect catch."

After another Côté fumble gave the Rams the ball on the Ottawa 31-yard line, the vaunted Gee-Gees' defence came up huge as lineman Patrick Paradis sacked Leason and then blocked Jon Ryan's field goal attempt on the ensuing play.

"I didn't expect us to get such a big lead on them in any part of the game and I was surprised how well our offence played," admitted Ottawa head coach Marcel Bellefeuille. "We thought that if we were in the last few minutes with a 10-point lead, we felt confident that our defence could hold them."

The Ottawa win ended a Cinderella season for the Rams, who became the first team in CIAU football history to make it to the Vanier Cup after going 0-8 in their first season. The Rams, who spent the first 45 years of their existence in the Canadian junior football league, joined the CIAU in 1999.

"We did some real good things and I think we had great character and character right throughout the program as a whole," said head coach Frank McCrystal on his team's effort this season. "We knew that this was a process to get to the Vanier Cup and obviously a process to win the Vanier Cup and this gets us one step closer to winning it."

NOTES: An announced crowd of 18,209 were at SkyDome, 5,000 more than for last year's game between St. Mary's and Laval... Rams' linebacker Mischa Bosovich, who was third in the CIAU in tackles during the regular season, was awarded the Bruce Colter Trophy, for the best defensive player on the losing team... The 81 combined points was the second-most in Vanier Cup history, next to the 90 scored between Western and Saskatchewan 1994, although that game was decided in overtime... This year's Vanier Cup marked the fourth time in seven seasons that the province of Saskatchewan has been represented (Saskatchewan Huskies 1998, '96 and '94)... Ottawa's appearance in the final was it's fifth (2000, 1997, 1980, 1975 and 1970) and fourth straight by an OQIFC team... Rams' linebacker Jeffrey Zimmer had a 55-yard game opening kickoff.

Summary

SCORING SUMMARY
First Quarter
1. Ottawa -- QB Phil Cote, 4-yard touchdown run (point-after by Jeff Lee-Yaw) 7:18, Ottawa 7 Regina 0
2. Ottawa -- QB Cote, 3-yard TD run (Lee-Yaw) 10:44, Ottawa 14 Regina 0
Second Quarter
3. Regina -- QB Darryl Leason, 1-yard TD run (Jon Ryan) 1:29, Ottawa 14 Regina 7
4. Ottawa -- FB Michael Shaver, 27-yard TD pass from Cote (Lee-Yaw) 3:50, Ottawa 21 Regina 7
5. Regina -- K Ryan, 25-yard field goal 7:46, Ottawa 21 Regina 10
6. Ottawa -- TE Ali Ajram, 15-yard TD run (Lee-Yaw) 9:53, Ottawa 28 Regina 10
7. Ottawa -- WR Mike DiBattista, 9-yard TD pass from Cote (Lee-Yaw) 14:57, Ottawa 35 Regina 10
Third Quarter
8. Regina -- QB Leason, 1-yard TD run (Ryan) 7:14, Ottawa 35 Regina 17
Fourth Quarter
9. Regina -- WR Jason Clermont, 16-yard TD pass from Leason (Ryan) :30, Ottawa 35 Regina 24
10. Ottawa -- WR DiBattista, 27-yard TD pass from Cote (Lee-Yaw) 4:21, Ottawa 42 Regina 24
11. Regina -- TB Neal Hughes, 5-yard TD run (Ryan) 8:02, Ottawa 42 Regina 31
12. Regina -- WR Chris Warnecke, 5-yard TD pass from Leason 0:00, Ottawa 42 Regina 37
13. Regina -- Leason convert-pass to Cory Olynick 0:00, Ottawa 42 Regina 39