{"id":272972,"date":"2025-11-09T22:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T22:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/272972\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T22:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T22:52:10","slug":"alouettes-quarterback-davis-alexander-to-be-key-figure-during-grey-cup-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/272972\/","title":{"rendered":"Alouettes quarterback Davis Alexander to be key figure during Grey Cup week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\" alt=\"Text to Speech Icon\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>Estimated 5 minutes<\/p>\n<p>The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>The Grey Cup spotlight will be on Davis Alexander this week in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n<p>The Montreal quarterback takes an unblemished 13-0 career record as a CFL starter into the Alouettes&#8217; Grey Cup showdown with the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Nov. 16.<\/p>\n<p>But all eyes will be on the charismatic American leading up to the big game after he tweaked his left hamstring in the Alouettes&#8217; 19-16 win over Hamilton in the East Division final Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Alexander twice spent time on the injured list with the injury that limited him to just seven games in his first full season as Montreal&#8217;s starter. The Alouettes were 7-0 under Alexander but 3-8 in games he didn&#8217;t start.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Davis has played with this injury for a few games, he played the majority of our training camp with it,&#8221; said Montreal head coach Jason Maas. &#8220;I know he knows how to deal with it but it remains to be seen how bad it is.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If he does not go, we&#8217;ll still have the same expectation on our team, which is to go in and win.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no doubt in Alexander&#8217;s mind that he&#8217;ll play. When he tweaked the hamstring in the fourth quarter against the Tiger-Cats, Maas instructed backup McLeod Bethel-Thompson to begin warming up only to have Alexander emphatically state he wasn&#8217;t coming out of the game.<\/p>\n<p>Alexander is 11-0 during the regular season for Montreal: the best start ever to a CFL career. He has won both of his post-season starts.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal and Saskatchewan will meet Sunday for the third time in the Grey Cup. The Alouettes defeated the Riders in 2009 (28-27) and 2010 (21-18).<\/p>\n<p>Davis: &#8216;I don&#8217;t have to be Superman&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Alexander didn&#8217;t enjoy his best outing versus Hamilton, completing 19 of 26 passes for 210 yards with a TD and interception while rushing seven times for a team-high 64 yards. But he didn&#8217;t scramble on Montreal&#8217;s seven-play, 36-yard final drive, completing two of three passes for 28 yards.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s a really good question, I couldn&#8217;t answer that for you,&#8221; Alexander said when asked if he could&#8217;ve run on the drive. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t play the cleanest game, but I don&#8217;t have to be Superman for this team to win.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whether people believe that or not, I hope now they do. This is a full unit, it&#8217;s one heartbeat. We talk about this all the time, we&#8217;re as resilient as it comes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Montreal Alouettes head coach Jason Maas looks on during CFL football action.\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762728730_529_default.jpg\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.2863058266784975\" data-cy=\"image-img\"\/>Montreal Alouettes head coach Jason Maas suggested he&#8217;s confident in Alexander&#8217;s ability to play in the pocket if his ailing hamstring limits his mobility in the Grey Cup. (Heywood Yu\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p>Maas said if Alexander&#8217;s mobility is limited against Saskatchewan, Montreal will adjust accordingly on offence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you have that hindrance, then you have to trust the offence and the offence is built with answers,&#8221; said Maas, a former CFL quarterback. &#8220;We&#8217;d have to come up with a gameplan that plays to what he&#8217;s able to do.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care if the other team knows that or not, it would be based on us executing. I know he [Alexander] is fully capable of playing in that pocket and making good decisions and chopping the ball down to a bunch of guys that I believe can make plays on our offence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/sports\/football\/cfl\/cfl-montreal-alouettes-hamilton-tiger-cats-east-final-9.6972359\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Maas will make his second Grey Cup appearance as a head coach. He won twice as a player with Edmonton (2003, &#8217;05) and as an assistant with Toronto (2012).<\/p>\n<p>Saskatchewan&#8217;s Corey Mace will make his Grey Cup debut as a head coach. He won a championship as a defensive lineman with Calgary (2014) and two as an assistant with the Stampeders (defensive line coach in 2018) and Toronto (defensive co-ordinator in 2022).<\/p>\n<p>If Alexander starts Sunday, he&#8217;ll face Saskatchewan for the first time this season. The teams split their two regular-season meetings, each winning on the road as Bethel-Thompson got both starts for Montreal.<\/p>\n<p>Saskatchewan won the first meeting 34-6 in Montreal on Aug. 2 but the Alouettes claimed a 48-31 shootout victory in Regina on Sept. 13. Bethel-Thompson threw for 379 yards and three TDs with two going to Canadian Tyson Philpot, who had nine catches for 238 yards.<\/p>\n<p>Stevie Scott III rushed for 125 yards on 19 carries (6.6-yard average).<\/p>\n<p>Riders&#8217; long-awaited Grey Cup return<\/p>\n<p>Saskatchewan makes its first Grey Cup appearance since 2013 when it defeated Hamilton 45-23 in Regina. On Saturday, Trevor Harris&#8217;s three-yard TD pass to Tommy Nield with 11 seconds remaining rallied the Riders past the B.C. Lions 24-21 in the West Division final.<\/p>\n<p>Harris finished 26 for 38 passing for 305 yards and two touchdowns. Running back A.J. Ouellette &#8211; who won a Grey Cup with Toronto in 2022 &#8211; ran 17 times for 113 yards.<\/p>\n<p>Harris, 39, is chasing a third Grey Cup championship after earning rings with Toronto (2012) and Ottawa (2016). Harris also started for the Redblacks in their 27-16 loss to Calgary in the &#8217;18 CFL title game.<\/p>\n<p>Alexander, 27, would make his first Grey Cup appearance. This is Montreal&#8217;s second time in the game since 2023, when it downed Winnipeg 28-24.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal will chase its ninth Grey Cup championship overall. Saskatchewan comes in having won four titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-272972","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\/272972","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=272972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}