If you have to say a premature goodbye, this was the way to do it.
Put up some huge numbers, unleash the entertaining big plays, be awed by the sensational work of your Hall-of-Fame-bound quarterback and send the home crowd into the off-season with a sense of hope and optimism for next year.
The 7-10 Tiger-Cats concluded their Tim Hortons Field portion of the 2024 season with a dominant 42-20 victory over the reeling Calgary Stampeders Friday night and have only next Friday’s date in Ottawa remaining in their first non-playoff year since 2017. But the final home game was a memorable one, mostly thanks to Bo Levi Mitchell.
If anyone had any doubts that Mitchell still has the goods, those doubts certainly had to have been put to rest last night. If not, you haven’t been watching all season, which has turned, statistically, into the second-best of Mitchell’s storied career, despite those sporadic and ill-timed turnovers which plagued him through the opening 10 games. Finishing as strongly as he has is another testament to the re-sculpturing of his body, and his approach to the game, that he diligently attacked last off-season.
His superior physical conditioning has been apparent all year, as he started with a 300-yard game, despite that opening loss in Calgary way back in June, and hit a stunning peak last night with a majestic 450 yards of aerial assaults and his second five-touchdown-pass game of the season. Prior to this year, he’d never thrown for more than four majors in a single game.
True, those five-TD games came against the other two non-playoff teams, both from Alberta—and Calgary has now lost all eight of its road games this year—but the way Mitchell was conducting himself last night he could have lit up the ’67 Ticats, the best defensive team in CFL history. (Appropriately it was announced on Friday night that one of the core players on that team, Garney Henley, will have his jersey number retired next season).
Mitchell came into Friday needing 424 yards over the final two games to become the first quarterback to reach 5,000 in a season since 2018 when he and three others topped the plateau. He got all those yards, and more before the first of those two games was over.
At 5,026 yards, Mitchell has moved into sixth place on the Ticats’ all-time single-season mark. There’s an outside chance that he could reach the franchise record of 5,367 established by Henry Burris in 2012, another non-playoff year and the final season at Ivor Wynne. He’d need 341 yards but he’s been averaging 296 per game, so it’s not fully out of the question, although it’s feasible that Powell will get some playing time next week too.
But 5,000 yards is in itself a remarkable achievement in the current CFL era and no other quarterback is likely to approach that this year.
“I knew this week how far we were out from it,” Mitchell said. “I was more worried about keeping the game close so Scott didn’t take me out. Scott said early in the week that we’re not going after stats, even though guys are close to milestones. It was ‘go out and win the game.’ I had the mindset of going out there and attacking and I appreciate the trust.
“It (5,000 yards) means a lot, to show the work you’ve put in in the off-season. It means a lot to show what the offence has done all year, despite the record, the work we put in as an offence and where we can go as a team. We‘re hard to beat right now, and the milestone is something I’ll appreciate later on, looking back at a career.”
Mitchell threw for touchdowns on the Ticats’ first four possessions as the Ticats roared off to a 30-0 lead, and he notched number five in the final quarter. Tim White and Steven Dunbar Jr. both had two touchdown receptions and big yardage totals and tight end Jevoni Robinson had the other as Mitchell connected with eight different receivers on the night.
Except for a small handful of Ante Litre short-yardage snaps, Mitchell played every minute on offence. All week, head coach Scott Milanovich had said he hoped to get backup Taylor Powell into the game but had no specific plan for it and that there was a chance Powell would not see action. He wants winning to be the number one priority, the only priority really, and says he’ll approach next week’s game in Ottawa with the same mentality because if the Ticats can win there, they’ll end their season with six wins in their final seven games and head into the off-season, and next spring’s training camp, with imperative momentum.
“I know even more than that (5,000-yard milestone), how important that game was to him with his time in Calgary,” Milanovich said. “I was told he was a little emotional after the game. I was proud of the way he played, especially after mentioning I wanted to get Taylor some reps. That’s not the easiest thing for a starter and I thought Bo handled it beautifully and played really well.
“I truly didn’t have a plan but as hot as Bo was I wasn’t going to take him out of the game. That would be unfair to him and everybody else in the organization. He earned the right to stay in there for sure.”
Mitchell did concede that it meant something for him to beat the Stampeders who had decided to transition to Jake Maier as their No. 1 quarterback two years ago, which essentially delivered Mitchell to Hamilton. Maier was benched last week and last night as Matthew Shiltz, who was Mitchell’s Ticat teammate last season, took over. But after Shiltz struggled, Maier came in to relieve him.
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do,” Mitchell said of the win over his former team. “I didn’t get the opportunity to go back there last year and play against them. So it feels good. It’s not something where I have a vengeance against those guys, but it’s your old team. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I wanted to go out there and beat the brakes off them. It was fun for everybody to come out and show up that way. Moxey used to be there, Ante and a couple of others. That’s what the CFL is, a lot of guys played on other teams. For myself, it felt good to go out there and put that to bed.”
Jonathan Moxey, who shifted from defensive halfback to boundary corner in the absence of injured premier shutdown corner Jamal Peters, spent four years in Calgary and made an aggressive interception on the game’s opening drive as Shiltz was impressively marching the Stampeders downfield. He jumped a route and picked off the ball at the Hamilton 30-yard line. Mitchell promptly drove the Ticats quickly downfield for the first of his quintet of touchdown passes.
Moxey said afterward that he had defended against that particular timing-pass play every day in practice as a Stampeder and could read exactly what was happening. He also felt he could have had another interception in the game but his head coach was satisified by, and impressed with, the one he did pick off.
“They had some momentum, they were moving on the first drive and I thought that play was critical,” Milanovich said. “Bo and those guys kind of caught a heater there, got field position on the second drive and scored on the next play and we were just hitting on all cylinders there for a little while.”
Calgary did show signs of turning things around late in the first half, scoring nine points in 20 seconds: a René Paredes field goal and a 65-yard interception return for a touchdown by Tre Roberson. They eventually whittled the Ticat margin down to two scores (33-17) with 20 minutes to go which made the crowd of 22,410 a bit antsy, but the final result was never in question.
“Not at all,” Tim White explained. “I felt like our offence was moving the ball downfield pretty much whenever we wanted, so I don’t think there was any doubt our team would continue to play together.”
Needing just two receiving yards to reach 1,000 for the third straight year, White had that on his first catch and eventually totaled 128 yards and two touchdowns—giving him eight on the season, just one off the league TD-reception lead—on five catches.
“It felt great,” he said. “I didn’t realize it on the first catch honestly. But it’s part of the game. It’s a long season and at the end of the day, you have to continue to chop wood and continue to go. Eventually, the numbers show. But winning is the No. 1 thing for our team.
“We went into the game knowing that this was the last time this season we were going to be able to defend our turf and we went out there like a team and we did exactly what we were supposed to do, we did exactly what the standard was from the beginning of the week.”
The Ticats finished with a 4-5 home record and two priorities, among many, for next year are to regain home-field dominance—no other team in the CFL East has fewer than six wins at home this season—and to get a better start to the season. Despite a strong final few weeks, their 0-5 start essentially doomed them because they needed so much help from other teams … and didn’t get it.
But there were so many throbbingly positive indicators on offence—Mitchell’s year, the play of running back Greg Bell who returned to the lineup and had 15 carries for 139 yards and picked up another 23 yards on passes, the offensive line leading the league in fewest sacks until they gave up two last night, White reaching 1000 yards and Dunbar needing just 84 yards to reach 1000 and Kiondré Smith also just 124 yards shy of the same plateau—that it seemed that this team, on offence at least, was a lot more talented than whatever its final record turns out to be. But, as the old adage goes, in pro sport you are what your record says you are.
“There are so many factors involved in that, with the way we started,” Milanovich said. “We lost a couple of close games too. And we won a couple, and the other team is probably saying they should have won. It kind of sorts out in the wash. I think, with this team as young as it is, it took us a while to learn how to win. It took us a while to figure out who can do what and who we can rely on and maybe who we couldn’t rely on and make some changes. But I’m proud of the way they played the last six or seven weeks.”
CATS CLAUSES: During the game, the Ticats announced that on Opening Day 2025, the No. 26 of legendary defensive back and receiver Garney Henley would be retired. The only other jerseys to be retired belonged to Henley’s teammates Angelo Mosca (68) and Bernie Faloney (10). Defensive back Destin Talbert currently wears 26 and will continue with it until the end of the season … Steven Dunbar Jr. had 146 yards and two TDs on his seven catches while Kiondré Smith had four catches, mostly in heavy traffic, for 72 yards. If Dunbar and Smith can both reach 1,000 yards next week in Ottawa it will be just the second time in franchise history the Ticats will have three 1,000-yard receivers. The last time was in 2017, which was also the last time the Ticats missed the playoffs before this year … the Ticats amassed 583 in total offence while the Stamps had 312 … Hamilton had 29 first downs to 19 for Calgary, and won the turnover battle 4-1… Marc Liegghio went 3-for-3 on field goals but missed one of his four converts … Trevor Hoyte and long snapper Gordon Whyte each had two special teams tackles … LB Ray Wilborn forced a fumble … LB DQ Thomas and safety Stavros Katsantonis each had five defensive tackles while Richard Leonard, Ryan Baker, Casey Sayles, and Wilborn had four each … DL Trevon Mason and David Menard both had pass knockdowns as did Talbert and Carthell Flowers-Lloyd … Sayles recovered a fumble … for Calgary, Matt Shiltz went 12-for-24 for 124 yards with an interception and Jake Maier was 2-for-5 for 30 yards … Reggie Begelton increased his consecutive-games catch streak to 69 with four for 39 Marken Michel yards, had three catches for 46 yards … Dedrick Mills rushed for 76 yards on 12 carries and Shiltz had 43 yards on his seven runs … Clarence Hicks had both Calgary sacks
