Primé embraces diverse, unsung role on Ticats offence

There are a handful of football positions that nearly anyone, including those who don’t follow football, can name without ever watching a game; fullback is not one of those.

Quarterback, linebacker, and running back are terms that could probably qualify as common knowledge for anyone who has heard about the game of football. Fullback, however, is a position that is almost always overlooked or under-appreciated.

The fullback position is not only ignored by non-football fans, but it’s often ignored by even the most avid fans of the game, which is why fullback Carl-Olivier Primé remains a relative unknown on the Tiger-Cats roster.

That being said, if fans knew all of the roles that Primé fulfills on the team, they’d almost certainly begin to take notice of the French Canadian starter.

“My main job is blocking,” says Primé, “I can block in space, and I can also be a run threat or a pass threat. I have a lot of things that I do.”

In the traditional NFL offence, the fullback is mostly used as a lead blocker on running plays, but in the pass-heavy CFL, Primé’s primary directive is pass-blocking.

In the Ticats offence, Primé typically lines up as a sixth offensive lineman, similar to where a tight end would line up in the NFL. 

Lining up in this position, the Ticats fullback typically picks up the outermost pass-rusher, but he will also line up in the backfield, remaining there to protect quarterback Zach Collaros from blitzing linebackers and defensive backs.

Any additional players who rush the passer on top of the standard down-linemen on a given play are considered to be blitzing; any players who are unaccounted for by the offensive linemen are considered to be ‘free blitzers’. In his role as the fullback, Primé plays a large part in stopping these free blizters from getting to the quarterback.

“You have to know who the o-line has,” explains Primé, “you have to have your eyes open and just be patient, and once you’ve got the blitzer, you stick with him and drive him out.”

Primé played linebacker in college, primarily being used as a pass-rusher at Wagner College. He says that his experience there has given him an edge in recognizing blitzes and getting into the heads of opposing linebackers.

“I know how a linebacker thinks,” he says, “I still think that way a little bit, even though I’m a fullback now.”

The time spent at linebacker has allowed Primé to contribute on special teams as well. In his first two seasons with the Ticats, the linebacker-turned-fullback has amassed 10 tackles on special teams.

Even though he played linebacker in college, Hamilton was not Primé’s first experience in the role of a fullback. In high school, he played a mixture of fullback and tailback, before making the switch to defence in college.

At the CFL level, Primé still gets the opportunity to utilize this versatility to move the ball on offence, either by running the ball or catching passes out of the backfield.

In 2014, his first season in the position, Primé ran the ball five times and caught three passes for a total of 32 yards.

Primé realizes that his position often goes unrecognized; and while he doesn’t mind staying out of the spotlight, he does believe that the position should see more attention from kids getting into the game.

“You get to see a lot more than what other guys do at one position,” pitches Primé. “That’s really what I love about fullback, the diversity of the things that you have to do.”