{"id":595020,"date":"2026-04-10T15:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/595020\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T15:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:30:10","slug":"rick-campbell-describes-new-role-with-edmonton-elks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/595020\/","title":{"rendered":"Rick Campbell describes new role with Edmonton Elks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto courtesy: Chris Hofley\/Ottawa Redblacks<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Elks recently hired Rick Campbell as a coaching analyst, which begs the question: what does a coaching analyst actually do? In a recent interview with Morley Scott on 880 CHED<\/a>, Campbell provided some details of what his role will entail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to be doing things like advanced scouting of opponents, which is a very necessary thing in football. I\u2019m going to do game management reports, a lot of things that a head coach would do in anticipation for a game, so just being an extra guy on-hand,\u201d said Campbell.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Elks head coach) Mark Kilam knows exactly what he\u2019s doing, that\u2019s not the point of this. It\u2019s just trying to assist the coaching staff in any way I can, and hopefully bring the knowledge that I have of being in the CFL for a long time, and being a head coach the last 10 years or so \u2014 just bringing that to the table and helping the team out any way I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell was the special teams coordinator with the Ottawa Redblacks this past season, though he wasn\u2019t retained as part of Ryan Dinwiddie\u2019s new staff. He previously served as the head coach of the Redblacks (2014-19) and B.C. Lions (2020-24), posting an 82-92-2 regular-season record, winning CFL Coach of the Year in 2015, and helping lead Ottawa to a victory in the 104th Grey Cup.<\/p>\n

Ed Hervey, who hired Campbell in B.C. and is now the general manager of the Elks, was the first one to contact him regarding the role.<\/p>\n

\u201cEd reached out to me initially to see if it\u2019s something that I would even be interested in doing. I still live out in Vancouver from my time with the B.C. Lions, and so I was just figuring out next steps of what I\u2019m going to do in my career,\u201d said Campbell.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Mark Kilam from working with him in Calgary, so we know each other personally. It just seemed to fit as we started talking. It just seemed like it would be a good thing on all fronts, and I\u2019m going to do whatever I can to help the team win this year. I\u2019m just looking forward to being back in Edmonton. It\u2019s been a while, and I\u2019m excited for CFL football to start again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old\u2019s resum\u00e9 features 26 years of CFL coaching experience, 10 of which came in two previous stints in Edmonton. As the son of legendary head coach Hugh Campbell and a graduate of Harry Ainlay High School, he has strong ties to the city.<\/p>\n

Though CFL fans are used to seeing Campbell prowl the sidelines, he\u2019s going to spend the 2026 season coaching from a different spot in Edmonton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to be in the booth, which I haven\u2019t been in a long time. I\u2019m going to be another set of eyes and ears, just from a game management point of view, and also schematically \u2014 see what\u2019s going on, especially on special teams. You can get a much better viewpoint \u2026 when you have a little bit of height and you can look down, you can actually see the play develop and what\u2019s going on,\u201d said Campbell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re at field-level, it\u2019s much tougher to see, so that\u2019s why you see head coaches or all coaches with headsets on, trying to communicate with people in the press box so you can see what\u2019s happening and going on. I\u2019m excited about that. It\u2019s definitely going to be a different role, but that\u2019s going to be a good thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The league is implementing a new 35-second running play clock this season, though the rules committee recommended leaving the clock unchanged<\/a> for the final three minutes of the first and second halves. This added wrinkle is another element he\u2019ll help tackle in his role.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be things like the 35-second play clock coming in this year, a few different rules that the teams are going to have to adapt to fast,\u201d said Campbell.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraining camps are short, so the team\u2019s going to be on top of that so the coaches and players are used to that new procedure. These new rules coming in, I think it\u2019s going to be key to who can adapt the fastest and be ready Week 1 for the regular-season to adapt to those rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for an update on Hugh, who will turn 85 next month, Campbell offered the following.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s doing all right,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s definitely retired but he\u2019s excited for me. Obviously, Edmonton\u2019s a special place for him, and he\u2019s hanging in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Chris Hofley\/Ottawa Redblacks The Edmonton Elks recently hired Rick Campbell as a coaching analyst, which begs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-595020","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\/595020","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=595020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}