After I let you know that William Stanback says he needs to “stomp Montreal” when his BC Lions pay a go to to the Alouettes on Friday, somewhat context is important.
As a result of though that may appear aggressively private once you learn it, the fact is that the veteran working again stated it somewhat calmly, somewhat matter-of-factly.
As effectively, that need was expressed after first speaking about how his previous with the Als is basically water beneath the bridge at this level, so far as he’s involved.
Think about, too, that Stanback goals to stomp each opponent he ever performs, has ever performed, or ever will play. That a lot is clear from even a fast look on the 30-year-old’s profession highlights.
Stanback is a stomper. A participant who goals to dominate with each contact of the soccer and each step that follows. Stompity-stomp-stomp is his factor, typically talking.
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However, positive, this sport looms somewhat bigger for Stanback, naturally. He did spend 5 seasons in Montreal earlier than being launched by the staff simply forward of free company final winter. That it had come to that? That damage.
It’s early Wednesday morning and Stanback is on the cellphone and on the transfer, being chauffeured to a media look in Vancouver. He’s obtained just a few further requests to deal with this week. Everybody needs to speak to him about this sport and about going again to face his previous staff for the primary time in a spot he used to name house, Percival Molson Memorial Stadium.
“Going into this stadium, going again to this province, it’s gonna imply rather a lot. Seeing the followers and every thing like that,” says Stanback. “However it’s a enterprise journey, man. I’m there to deal with enterprise.”
This isn’t a giant sport for Stanback alone. It is a massive, massive sport for the entire Lions, keen to indicate after final week’s demolition of the Ottawa REDBLACKS that they’re again on monitor after 5 straight losses, able to as soon as once more be the staff all of us thought they had been after they began the season at 5-1. What higher method to present everybody – and themselves – that’s the case than by beating the CFL’s greatest staff at house?
That’s what Stanback says he’s centered on, though his private need to have a big say in a victory over the Alouettes is a minimum of a supply of some further inspiration this week. And that, in any case, will not be at cross functions with the primary goal anyway. A dominating Stanback can be a tasty enhance for the Lions on Friday night time, undoubtedly.
“Yeah, after all, that’s considerably my plan,” says Stanback. “To go in there and dominate, to allow them to know, like, ‘Hey guys, you made a small mistake.’ However it’s all good. I’m simply able to go there and play my sport. And my guys and the coaches, they’re gonna all have my again. And as soon as I begin, as soon as I get it going, it’s gonna be onerous to cease me. So, I’m prepared for it.”
Stanback’s 5 years in Montreal included two seasons of 1,000-yard speeding and two CFL All-Star choices as he rolled up 4,526 complete ground-gain yards and one other 1,360 in receptions. In 2021, he was the East Division nominee for Most Excellent Participant.
The very subsequent season, nevertheless, Stanback suffered a critical ankle harm throughout Montreal’s first sport and he didn’t see the sector once more till October. He rushed 12 instances for 84 yards in Montreal’s 34-27 loss to the Toronto Argonauts within the Japanese Remaining that 12 months.
Final 12 months, Stanback rushed for 800 yards through the common season after which capped his last 12 months in Montreal with a 32-yard landing run within the Als’ Gray Cup win over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. A reasonably good 12 months, all in all, with a pleasant, shiny ring to prime issues off.
However he wasn’t feeling the love, he says.
Though he’d felt wholesome and capable of play as much as his capabilities in 2023, Stanback wasn’t fairly employed as a workhorse tailback in the best way he’d been accustomed. “I did really feel like I used to be held again,” he advised TSN in an interview final June. “I simply felt like the boldness for me wasn’t there…with the individuals up prime.”
The Alouettes had three gifted working backs on the roster together with Canadian Jeshrun Antwi in addition to rising star Walter Fletcher so that they determined to launch Stanback simply earlier than free company started – the staff stated on the time that it was at his request – concluding what the veteran felt was a somewhat complicated 12 months for him.
After signing with the Lions in February, Stanback asserted that the Alouettes didn’t make him any sort of supply and that he’d have been tremendous with taking a pay lower so as to stick with the staff.
“I wished to be simply handled proper,” he stated throughout his inaugural Lions media convention on Feb. 7. “I wished to be revered. I didn’t need to be checked out as I’m simply being tolerated. That was the sensation I used to be having.”
If Stanback was offended then, he says he isn’t now. Not a lot, anyway.
“Effectively, I suppose you may say it’s subsided a bit,” Stanback tells me. “I actually don’t give it some thought anymore. One door closed, one other one opened for me and my household and I’m having fun with the experience proper now.”
That experience with the Lions has to this point seen Stanback be the participant we’ve all the time identified him to be. He leads the CFL in carries (161) and is second in speeding yards with 810, topping all rushers relating to runs of 10 yards or extra (24). Via the air, Stanback has added 302 yards in receiving, and 215 of these are yards-after-catch.
Final week, the Lions actually leaned on the native of Hempstead, NY of their 38-12 victory over Ottawa. Stanback carried 20 instances for 93 yards and a landing and caught all six passes thrown his manner for an additional 78 yards.
“That is just about what I’ve requested for,” Stanback says of his season in BC. “Simply to have one other alternative to showcase my skill to play this sport at a excessive stage. And I really feel just like the Lions have granted me (that), and I’m simply going to proceed to do every thing I can to be prepared, be ready, be obtainable, and be a dominant drive each time I get a possibility to the touch the ball.”
In making ready for Friday night time, Stanback says that he and his teammates are absolutely conscious of what this sport means to them and of what sort of opposition they’re dealing with.
Roarin’ run 🦁
William Stanback does what he does SO effectively and provides to the Lions’ lead.@OKTire #LDWeekend#CFLGameDay LIVE on TSN, RDS2 & CBSSN
📲: Stream on CFL+ pic.twitter.com/T9FyrNqon0— CFL (@CFL) September 1, 2024
“We all know what kind of staff they’re,” he says of the Alouettes. “We all know what they’re able to doing, however we additionally know what we are able to do right here. We simply have to actually zero in and lock into the sport plans. We simply should execute at a excessive stage, and make it possible for we keep centered from the start of the sport to the top of it, as a result of they’re not a staff that’s going to put down and roll over.
“So we gotta go there and get it.”
Because the interview wraps up, I circle again round to Stanback’s emotions about dealing with his previous staff. I supply that even when a man doesn’t nonetheless really feel a contemporary, scorching anger in direction of his former employers that absolutely what stays is the need to emphatically illustrate to them that they made a mistake.
“I’m excited,” he says. “I suppose you may say it’s nonetheless some bitterness, a bittersweet feeling, however I’m able to tackle the problem. And them guys (his former Alouette teammates), I do know they’re gonna be chirpin’ all night time. And I’m prepared for it. I’m constructed for this.
“I’m all in, 100 per cent able to run the ball as many instances as they name it, catch the ball out the backfield, block, no matter we obtained to do to win, as a result of I need to stomp them,” says Stanback.
“And that’s straight coming from me. I’m making an attempt to stomp Montreal.”
However that’s what William Stanback is all the time making an attempt to take action it’s nothing private.