It was the kind of practice Marc Trestman likely envisions during the off season.
On Tuesday, his Argonauts performed with the tempo any coach longs for. The offence was crisp and the defence was swarming to the ball while the special teams were fast and on point.
Now, the offence looks to achieve what Trestman – and every other coach at any level – strives to accomplish with his group.
Consistency.
There have been times where the Argos have moved the ball with ease. Ricky Ray has thrown for over 300 yards in eight of the 10 games he’s started. Calgary kept him below that total in the other two contests, including once when Ray left early with a shoulder injury.
What must be beyond frustrating for the staff is that some of those big-yardage games have come in losses, most recently on Labour Day when the Argos threw for 325 yards, but scored just a pair of touchdowns in a 24-22 loss in Hamilton.
How do the Argos grasp that elusive consistency and figure out a way to finish off drives with touchdowns rather than field goals?
“The key is to eliminate the penalties,” said Trestman, not needing to mention that three different offensive linemen took holding penalties in the opening quarter alone in the Hammer. “If we take away the major penalties that we had early last week we would have been in a highly efficient offence for most of the game.”
“Because we didn’t,” the coach continued, “we made it very difficult on ourselves and that’s what we’ve done when we haven’t been efficient. It’s because we’ve essentially stopped ourselves.”
There is no question that Trestman works hard devising ways to put his players in the best possible position to reach that goal. He arrives at the office every morning at about five o’clock, before heading for home at around 7:00 pm.
During the bye week he was able to take a bit of a break and get back to Chicago for a couple of days, “Where my wife and my dogs are,” added a smiling coach, before mentioning the bye probably came at a great time.
“Well, we went 11 straight games without a break,” said Trestman. “So, we’ll find out. We’ll find out whether the rest has helped us, whether we’ve got reinvigorated. We’re locked into Edmonton right now and we’re very impressed with what we see on both sides of the ball.”
Chris Van Zeyl is the Argo with the most tenure. Now in his tenth season in Double Blue, the offensive right tackle echoed his head coach in terms of how to create more consistency.
“The great offences are the ones that make the fewest mistakes,” said the Fonthill, Ontario, native. “Every individual has to make sure they’re doing what they’re coached to do and when we start doing that and stop shooting ourselves in the foot by taking penalties or making mental errors (things will improve).”
Trying to help the offensive line become more consistent is Jonathan Himebauch, back for another term as offensive line coach. He was a guest coach during training camp but is now back to oversee the group on a daily basis.
“I’ve got to put in fundamentals that I believe are critical to o-line success,” said the former USC Trojan co-captain, “But also we need to game plan, so I can’t do ‘Training Camp 101’ every single day, but we also need to understand that there are certain techniques and certain things that need to be addressed every day at my expectations.”
As a group, the offensive line has been a part of the problem in terms of inconsistency. Everyone in Argoland is optimistic the return of Himebauch will be a big part of getting that group to play to its potential.
As the old football axiom goes, it all starts with the offensive line.