THE CANADIAN PRESS
C.J. Gable put his “all gas, no brakes” motto into action in his 2015 season debut.
Carl Junior put the pedal to the floor and didn’t let up against the Roughriders. He set career highs with 20 carries for 135 yards rushing in Hamilton’s 31-21 Week 5 win. There was no easing back into game action for Gable — he came right out of the gate running at full speed after recovering from a hand injury suffered in training camp.
Veteran offensive lineman Peter Dyakowski knows what it’s like to work back from an injury. Most recently the longest serving Ticat currently on the roster suffered a torn patellar tendon in his knee. It took him 364 days to be able to get back on the football field.
“When you’re recovering from an injury, you work through all the stages of progression of rehab so by the time you’re on the field you know you’re ready and it’s not a giant step beyond what you’ve done. You’ve gradually worked up to that point,” Dyakowski says.
“I didn’t have any problem when I got back on the field after my injury and obviously C.J. didn’t either.”
Gable’s ability to handle a full workload and be productive immediately was part of the reason Hamilton was able to deploy its most balanced offensive game plan this season. In the Ticats’ first three games of 2015 the team averaged 41.6 pass plays and 15.3 rushes per game. In Week 5 Hamilton ended up with 29 pass plays and 24 rushes. But those are just figures that don’t tell the whole story.
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“Some of those numbers are misleading. To the layman they just see pure statistical numbers, but you really have no idea if you didn’t look at the film of how many actual runs were called because they are reads,” offensive coordinator Tommy Condell explains.
“Sometimes we read out of something from a defensive structure and we pull it [from the running back]. So there are runs that are called but sometimes from that aspect you do whatever the defensive structure gives you.”
“You can’t beat your head against the wall. If a team is defending the run and not going to let you run than you’re not just going to go ahead and hand the ball off and get hit.”
With that said, each football game is unique and has its own flow, so Condell calls plays accordingly.
“We’ve gotta win games and however that takes place – if we run 50 times or throw 50 times I couldn’t care less as long as we get a ‘W’.”
Against Saskatchewan Condell leaned on No. 32.
“As the game progressed he was getting a lot of production so it was kind of easy to call that.”
Dyakowski and his offensive line mates like being able to tee-off on opposing defences in the run game. And it appears that with Gable back in the lineup Hamilton could allow that to happen more often.
“If you pass the ball all the time the defensive linemen get more confidence in their pass reads and rush more readily,” Dyakowski says. “When you mix in runs they better be careful, they can’t just fly off the ball because they might give up their gap to a run. Having that diversity in your plays makes defenders a little bit more hesitant and less sure of themselves.”
Gable runs fast, hard, powerful and physical, a combination offensive linemen love.
“He gets results when you put the ball in his hands. He finds the hole and makes it happen,” Dyakowski says.
“What’s important is that danger C.J. brings to our offence, that added element that the defence has to be concerned about.”
Condell believes Gable brings physicality to Hamilton’s offence, whether he’s running the ball, catching it or pass protecting. Any running back in the Ticats’ offensive system would be asked to run, catch and block, but Gable’s ability to do everything asked of him at a high level sets him apart.
“He’s one of the best all-around backs in the league.”
Because of that talent, Gable has made the Ticats’ offence much more able.
