The Western Mustangs football team is putting up better numbers on offense than ever before, and they’re doing it by sharing the ball.
The Mustangs lead the OUA in yards (689.3) and points (54.3) per game, yet no player leads the league in any offensive category. Instead, they’ve opted for the committee approach.
Four Mustangs (Garret Sanvido, Yannick Harou, Will Finch, and Alex Taylor) average over 60 rushing yards a game, and five players (Brian Marshall, Shaquille Johnson, Justin Sanvido, Matt Uren, and George Johnson) average over 40 receiving yards per game. Even backup quarterback Stevenson Bone has over 500 passing yards.
Could it be the deepest arsenal of weapons in the team’s history? Head coach Greg Marshall thinks so.
“When Michael Faulds was here, we weren’t as deep at receiver as we are right now,” Marshall says. “We’ve had some good teams. Last year, we had some pretty good balance, but I think this year we’re just a little bit better.”
“We’ve got a great group of guys,” says receivers coach Chris Patton. “They’re super-talented, and they work to make everybody better. They block; they catch. We’ve got a lot of talent at receiver, and we’re very fortunate. Any one of them is a threat on any pass play.”
The flip side of sharing the ball is that some players haven’t seen as much of the spotlight as they might otherwise see.
“I understand the individual awards, but it’s a team game,” Marshall says. “We all have that in us that we’d like to be an All-Star or All-Canadian. We had a lot of All-Stars last year. This year, we want to win the national championship, and to do that, we’ve got to win together as a team.”
The Mustangs go head-to-head with Guelph this Saturday with second place in the OUA on the line.
Both teams enter the matchup with 5-1 records.
