{"id":901647,"date":"2026-09-19T12:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T12:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/901647\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T12:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T12:12:26","slug":"hogan-looking-to-bounce-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/901647\/","title":{"rendered":"Hogan: Looking to Bounce Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s one of the great traditions in football. After a win, the team gathers in the locker room and hands out game balls, symbolic of a player making huge contribution to the victory. Offensive, defensive, and special teams captains make positive speeches, then toss a ball to the worthy recipient.<\/p>\n

When the Toronto Argonauts defeated Ottawa last Saturday at BMO Field, the post-game ritual was going as planned. Offensive captain Chad Kelly tossed the game ball to Dave Ungerer III for his 7 catch, 175-yard, 1 touchdown performance, who in turn paid respect to the offensive line.<\/p>\n

Defensive captain DaShaun Amos was up next, flipping the game ball to Ralph Holley, who gave praise to every defensive group.<\/p>\n

Related Content<\/p>\n

Then came special teams captain Brian Harelimana, who didn\u2019t exactly have the pom-poms out when he addressed his teammates. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cOn my name, this will never happen again,\u201d he said to his teammates. \u201cYou want to thank the offence and the defence for saving us today because we made a lot of mistakes and y\u2019all was there to help us out. But regardless, good teams find a way to win and that\u2019s what we did today.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019d then flip the game ball to long snapper Adam Guillemette, highlighting how he\u2019s been a consistent, unsung hero. But Harelimana\u2019s message was heard, the special teams overall performance wasn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n

The Argos allowed just one big return on Saturday, when Kalil Pimpleton took a fourth quarter punt back 88 yards to set up a field goal that tied the game 23-23. The game was eventually won on, yes, a special teams play by the Argos, a 29-yard walk-off field goal by Lirim Hajrullahu. <\/p>\n

So why was Harelimana so upset with the overall play of his unit?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just didn\u2019t play to our standards,\u201d the Kenyan-born, Laval-raised linebacker told Argonauts.ca. \u201cToo many penalties. Ottawa had a step on us. It wasn\u2019t us; it wasn\u2019t what we had done the previous weeks. We take pride in what we do. We try our best to help this team out, we know special teams are a big part of the game. We weren\u2019t to our standards, and we\u2019ll be better this weekend and the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The big Pimpleton return knocked the Argos out of first place in the league in terms of average yards allowed per punt return, now at 12.0, still third best in the CFL. The punt team and punt return teams have set the league standard for most of the season \u2013 the 14.8 yards-per-return still lead the league \u2013 so it\u2019s understandable that members of the group aren\u2019t happy when an opponent breaks a big return.<\/p>\n

Harelimana leads the team with a dozen special teams tackles, one more than Adarius Pickett and Derek Slywka. The latter has been as versatile as any Argo in recent memory. He spent his first couple of months as a receiver, then was flipped to safety, where he started last year. He spent most of this year\u2019s training camp as a backup to Pickett at SAM linebacker, has played most of his snaps as the fourth man in four linebacker sets, then has moved to WILL, where he\u2019s started the last two games.<\/p>\n

All the while he\u2019s remained a constant on teams. On the big Pimpleton return he had the outside lane to the boundary and helped force the returner to the middle. When he saw Pimpleton was headed wide and may have the corner on the far side, Slywka picked his angle of pursuit, racing on a 45-degree angle to where he thought he could catch him if he got by other defenders. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He sprinted from the 15-yard line on the Argos sideline, blowing past teammates, and was able to force Pimpleton to slow down by beating him to the sideline at the 35-yard line on the Ottawa side, where the Redblack was forced to slow down and was caught from behind by Isaiah Smith and brought down by Smith, Slywka, and Harelimana.<\/p>\n

It was a rare blip in coverage, but Sylwka\u2019s hustle \u2013 and apparent skill in trigonometry \u2013 prevented a touchdown. His effort summed up the pride his group has taken in their work. But why has it worked so well? Is it the game plans devised by coordinator Mickey Donovan? Is it the level of talent in the group?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a combination of both,\u201d Slywka told Argonauts.ca. \u201cWe\u2019re all very focused throughout the week. When we\u2019re doing walkthroughs we\u2019re getting a lot of reps in, guys are really communicating at a high level. We\u2019ve had some turnover (in personnel) and the next guy has stepped up. I think that\u2019s what\u2019s allowed the talent to show; we\u2019ve got some really fast guys who are able to get down there (even) the guys that are playing on the line, they\u2019re able to shed blocks and run down there with speed. When everyone\u2019s playing fast it creates fewer levels and I think that\u2019s allowed us to have a lot of success.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Argos have a chance for redemption this week, but it won\u2019t be easy. The 10-3 Edmonton Elks are in town for a 3:00 kickoff, but Harelimana says his groups won\u2019t be more fired up than usual.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the fire changes,\u201d he said. \u201cI just think the focus changes a bit; just getting back to the basics. We know we can\u2019t let this team down. I promised the guys, and the guys have my back, that this won\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s one of the great traditions in football. After a win, the team gathers in the locker room…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-901647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901647","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=901647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}