When the Saskatchewan Huskies take the field for the 60th installment of the Vanier Cup, the group will be backed by a familiar emotional force that has followed the team since early October.
The Canada West champion squares off against the RSEQ victor Montreal Carabins at Mosaic Stadium in Regina on Saturday, no more than two weeks after its star quarterback, Anton Amundrud, began treatment for lymphoma.
Huskies players were rocked by the news of Amundrud’s diagnosis — delivered to the team by head coach Scott Flory — following the 23-year-old’s brilliant Week 5 performance against the Alberta Golden Bears.
Backup pivot Jake Farrell has since stepped in and helped Saskatchewan engineer an unblemished 5-0 record, culminating in a 22-11 Mitchell Bowl win over the Queen’s Gaels last week.
The Huskies (10-1) defence stonewalled the Gaels throughout the contest, while third-year wide receiver Daniel Kubongo’s 85-yard punt return helped supplement an inconsistent offensive performance.
Under coach Flory, Saskatchewan will make its third Vanier Cup appearance in five years, having fallen short in 2021 and 2022.
The program has hoisted the trophy three times (1990, ‘96, ‘98) but has been unable to achieve a breakthrough, going winless in its last six attempts in the final.
However, Flory — a Canadian Football Hall of Famer and member of the Huskies’ 1998 championship squad — believes the current iteration can finish the job.
“There’s a different edge to this group here right now,” Flory said after the Mitchell Bowl.
“You can see that on the field … you can see it in the preparation from our end. You can feel it in the physicality and how we’re playing. There’s a focus here.”
U of S Huskies to face Montreal Carabins in 60th Vanier Cup
Standing in the way of Flory and the Huskies’ storybook ending are head coach Marco Iadeluca and the Carabins (9-2), just two years removed from capturing the 58th Vanier Cup due in large to 2023 Hec Crighton Trophy recipient, quarterback Jonathan Sénécal.
The Carabins are led by prodigious rookie passer Pepe Gonzalez, whose 19 passing touchdowns broke Sénécal’s single-season school record.
Les Bleus punched their ticket to the championship game after dismantling the Saint Mary’s Huskies 49-19 in the Uteck Bowl.
“Some saw it as a trap game for us,” Iadeluca said afterward.
“The reality is we were facing a very talented team that had a fantastic season. We had to make sure we played our way, and that’s what we did for most of the game.”
Iadeluca is a talented playcaller and has orchestrated five consecutive winning seasons since becoming head coach in 2020 during the campaign cancelled due to COVID-19.
He served as offensive coordinator in 2014 when the school won the first of its two Vanier Cups.
Beyond the aerial threat Gonzalez poses to Saskatchewan, the Carabins boast a talented backfield duo that flexed significant influence on the outcome of the Uteck Bowl.
Mathieu Barsalou was devastatingly effective at capping drives, scoring a team-record four times on 11 carries, while Rémi Lambert amassed 90 yards on just eight carries in the blowout win.
Saskatchewan must keep track of wide receiver Enrique Jaimes Leclair, the star of Montreal’s rematch victory over Laval in the RSEQ title game after hauling in 11 catches for 136 yards, also adding a rushing touchdown.
The Carabins’ high-flying attack scored 37.4 points per game this season and ranked sixth in the nation in total offence, setting up a tantalizing matchup of styles against a stifling Saskatchewan defence that limited its opposition to 16.8 points per game.
Despite USask’s balanced approach, defence has become the team’s calling card during its run to the final, conceding more than 12 points just once in its last five games.
Linebacker and Canada West defensive player of the year Seth Hundeby recorded two sacks and a forced fumble in the Mitchell Bowl, consistently ruining the Gaels’ offensive gameplan en route to being named defensive player of the contest.
Hundeby, an experienced leader and Saskatchewan Roughriders draft pick, returned to school this year to continue his engineering degree and complete his fifth year of eligibility with the Huskies, hailing the team’s unity following its Mitchell Bowl conquest.
“Playing football here has been the most amazing [thing], and that’s what we talk about every week, it’s like, ‘how long do we want to stick together?’ We’ve got one more week and I feel like that really shows how much this group enjoys each other,” Hundeby said.
“I’m so excited to keep wearing this jersey for as long as I can, and I’ve got one more use of it [next week].”
Inverting the field, the Carabins defence will look to neutralize the Huskies’ red-hot running game led by Ryker Frank, the program’s all-time leader in rushing touchdowns.
Frank has generated a staggering 549 yards of total offence during the post-season alone and will undoubtedly be a key factor in Saskatchewan’s gameplan.
Carabins defensive linemen Mukendi Jhonathan Mutombo and Gabriel Maisonneuve combined for a total of 8.5 sacks during the regular-season, each providing valuable trench play throughout the campaign.
Both will be among those tasked with containing Frank’s all-purpose threat.
Montreal’s secondary will also have its hands full with fifth-year wide receiver Daniel Wiebe, a prominent Hec Crighton nominee who collected 1,140 yards and 11 touchdowns on 65 receptions this year.
Saskatchewan Huskies’ wide receiver strives for 2025 Vanier Cup
The outcome may ultimately be distilled down to which unit can better impose itself on the opposition between Montreal’s offence and Saskatchewan’s defence.
All-Star returner Kubongo and the Huskies’ special teams buoyed its offence with peripheral scoring at a crucial moment when Saskatchewan’s passing game was misfiring against Queen’s. Montreal won’t be wise to offer similar opportunities in that phase during the final.
Les Bleus made a statement with its rematch win over Laval in the Coupe Jacques-Dussault, and while the Carabins can’t presently lean on as storied a legacy as its in-province rival — nobody can — the Carabins will look to author the latest victorious chapter in the program’s rapidly growing history on Saturday.
From a Huskies perspective, though the journey from Griffiths Stadium to Mosaic is only an approximate 255 kilometres, the 2025 campaign has been a whirlwind odyssey for a group still closely invested in Amundrud’s ongoing battle.
This Vanier Cup could also represent a chance for Flory’s team to validate an era of players that fell agonizingly short twice before, and — finally — achieve its first breakthrough in the 21st century.
