Jarret Doege was an unlikely hero for the Toronto Argonauts on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Doege came off the bench to engineer the decisive drive that Lirim Hajrullahu capped with a 48-yard field goal on the game\u2019s final play to earn Toronto a wild 31-30 victory over the\u00a0Edmonton\u00a0Elks. Doege replaced starter Nick Arbuckle (calf) and completed three-of-six passes for 35 yards in marching the Argos 40 yards on eight plays to set up Hajrullahu\u2019s game-winning boot.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my third year in the CFL so I feel like I\u2019ve kind of figured out the game a little bit,\u201d Doege said. \u201cI kind of feel like I know how to go out there and play well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always nerves but once you hit the first completion they go away. I knew we were trying to get to the 50 or past the 50 to get a field goal so that was my main goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The six-foot-one, 210-pound Doege spent his first two CFL seasons with\u00a0Edmonton\u00a0(2023-\u201924) before joining the Argos during training camp. Friday\u2019s contest was Doege\u2019s first-regular season action with Toronto and he relished that it came against his former team.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh yeah, that felt good,\u201d he said. \u201cIt felt it had a little more to it than any other game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt (coming off bench) is tough to do. But it\u2019s part of the job and being a backup quarterback because you\u2019ve got to prepare like you\u2019re the starter and be ready to play when your number is called.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arbuckle was hurt on Toronto\u2019s previous possession and the injury severely impacted his mobility, prompting head coach Ryan Dinwiddie to change quarterbacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cNick just couldn\u2019t move well enough to get it done for us,\u201d Dinwiddie said. \u201cThe kid (Doege) works his butt off.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s here in the morning when I get here and he\u2019s here at night leaving when I leave. You\u2019ve got to be that guy at the quarterback position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toronto (5-8) earned a third straight win despite playing catchup throughout most of this contest.<\/p>\n
Arbuckle hit Jake Herslow on a 30-yard touchdown strike at 3:17 of the fourth to pull Toronto to within 24-21. But Vincent Blanchard\u2019s 16-yard field goal at 9:18 \u2014 set up by Kenneth Logan Jr.\u2019s interception \u2014 put\u00a0Edmonton\u00a0ahead 27-21.<\/p>\n
Defensive lineman Andrew Chatfield Jr. gave Toronto a 28-27 lead with a 10-yard fumble-return TD at 11:35. Derek Parish sacked\u00a0Edmonton\u00a0quarterback Cody Fajardo and forced the fumble.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought our defensive line answered the bell and let our linebackers fit the gaps and play downhill,\u201d Dinwiddie said. \u201cIf we can do that, we\u2019ve got a shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re far from a finished product, we\u2019re still a work in progress but that\u2019s the whole point. You want to be playing your best football at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edmonton\u00a0(5-8) missed an opportunity to create a three-way tie for third in the West Division. Instead, the Elks stand fifth, two points behind the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (6-7) and B.C. Lions (6-7) despite registering six turnovers (four interceptions, twice on downs).<\/p>\n
Edmonton\u00a0came in with a CFL-low three picks.<\/p>\n
Arbuckle finished 21-of-31 passing for 261 yards with two TDs and the four interceptions. Makai Polk had six catches for a game-high 95 yards.<\/p>\n
Fajardo completed 25-of-28 passes for 229 yards and two touchdowns. Justin Rankin \u2014 who ran for 204 yards and two TDs in last week\u2019s win over Calgary \u2014 rushed for 27 yards on 12 carries.<\/p>\n
It was a thrilling end for the BMO Field gathering of 14,742 as Toronto paid tribute to the late John Candy, who in the 1990s co-owned the franchise with Bruce McNall and Wayne Gretzky. Last week, the documentary \u201cJohn Candy: I Like Me,\u201d premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.<\/p>\n
Herslow had Toronto\u2019s other two touchdowns while Dave Ungerer III had a two-point convert. Hajrullahu had three field goals and two converts.<\/p>\n
Rankin, Kaion Julien-Grant and Cole Snyder had Edmonton\u2019s touchdowns. Blanchard added three converts and three field goals.<\/p>\n
Hajrullahu\u2019s 27-yard field goal at 10:43 of the third pulled Toronto to within 21-14. Blanchard\u2019s 30-yard kick to end the quarter made it a 10-point game.<\/p>\n
Toronto opened the second half with Arbuckle\u2019s 18-yard TD pass to Herslow at 1:57. Arbuckle found Ungerer for the two-point convert to cut Edmonton\u2019s lead to 14-11.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0Edmonton\u00a0countered with Snyder\u2019s one-yard TD run at 7:54 to lead 21-11.<\/p>\n
Hajrullahu\u2019s 53-yard field goal to end the second quarter cut Edmonton\u2019s halftime advantage to 14-3. It capped a miserable opening half for Toronto\u2019s offence, which accumulated just 89 net yards, of which 69 came on a 13-play march that ended with Spencer Brown being stopped short on third down at the Elks\u2019 15-yard line.<\/p>\n
Toronto had three first-half turnovers, two coming on short third-down gambles out of shotgun formation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Edmonton\u00a0wasn\u2019t much better offensively, amassing 137 net yards \u2014 including just 13 on the ground. Fajardo was a tidy 12-of-14 passing for 146 yards and two TDs while being sacked three times.<\/p>\n
Fajardo\u2019s 19-yard touchdown pass to Julien-Grant staked\u00a0Edmonton\u00a0to a 14-0 lead at 9:24 of the second. Rankin opened the scoring with a four-yard TD grab at 11:35 of the first.<\/p>\n
UP NEXT<\/p>\n
Toronto: Hosts the Montreal Alouettes (5-7) on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Edmonton: Visits the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (8-5) on Saturday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jarret Doege was an unlikely hero for the Toronto Argonauts on Saturday afternoon. Doege came off the bench…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-144150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}