Huskies football program shines in electric home opener

The weather was gross the day before homecoming, which was Sept. 10. I walked to the football clubhouse tucked away in the south end of Griffiths Stadium to talk to some coaches and members of the Huskie football team before the big home opener. Quarterback Anton Amundrud and defensive lineman Nathan Jule gave me a few minutes of their time.

Jule gave me his prediction for Super Bowl LXI: “The Los Angeles Chargers, obviously.” I asked both players what would be the biggest animal they could fell in unarmed combat. Amundrud, belying his cannon arm that contributes to his status as one of Huskie athletics’ top prospects, says “probably a mosquito.” Jule, less modest, says a small black bear. “I think I could do it. You ever see them wrestling in Russia?”

Amundrud was the subject of plenty of talk heading into the homecoming game. His story is jaw-dropping. On Oct. 24 of last year, Amundrud went to the hospital. One month later, still in the hospital, he received a cancer diagnosis. Now, after just under a year on the bench and six rounds of chemotherapy, he’s back where he belongs as the Huskies’ star quarterback. It’s the kind of thing you could write a movie about. 

I asked assistant head coach and offensive coordinator Mason Nyhus about what it means for Anton to be back on the team in playing shape. “He’s obviously the leader of the offence as well as the team. He’s just a beauty … He’s a great leader. It’s always about everybody else, so he’s just a pleasure to be around.” 

The team was coming off a 40-22 road loss in the season opener to the Manitoba Bisons, and I was wondering about how that might have affected their collective mindset going into the home opener. Nyhus chuckles a little.

“Some buzzwords. I like that. Obviously at some point you’re going to face adversity, right? I mean, collectively, top down, we got to be better, and that starts with myself and our head coach Scott Flory … We’re not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You just kind of keep going. You keep your head down. You keep chopping. You go into the next week.”

Head coach Flory was similarly driven. “The key in life and in sports is how you respond … We get another opportunity, and I fully expect our team to come out and play with energy, play with passion, physicality and just the focus we need in order to win football games.”

And it would be nice to win this football game. The home opener, complete with the traditional toga run, the giant inflatable husky, the fireworks and that barking sound effect that plays over the PA system, has an undeniable aura. One that the team no doubt feeds off, considering its come out on top for the past five years of homecoming games. Nyhus knows that. “Man, it’s awesome … [USask has] the best fans in university sports, no doubt … We’re a good team, and that’s due in large part to our fan base. We’re lucky, and we’re looking forward to playing in front of them on Friday.”

The notion of homecoming is romantic. By experiencing a homecoming event, you get the feeling that you’re part of something bigger than yourself and bigger than your university. It’s what I like to think of as a facet of the big C College experience. 

Whether everyone else sees it the way I do or not, there is no denying that the easiest way to drum up school spirit is with a football game. For one evening, semantics like major, college and year fall by the wayside in the name of celebrating our university and our Huskie athletes. 

And for what it’s worth, I think we were in dire need of some good old-fashioned college normalcy this year. Construction has descended upon our campus and created nearly unavoidable headaches for everybody. Our beautiful bowl has been temporarily transformed into the sound stage where they filmed the moon landing, and I’ve started seeing those yellow construction walls in my dreams. 

That’s why all throughout the day of Sept. 11, I was feeling particularly proud to be a USask student, and particularly confident in the ability of our USask Huskies to send the Calgary Dinos back to the Triassic. I caught the school spirit bug in a big way. Before I knew it, I was walking through the field by the parkade and getting lost in the festivities. 

At around five o’clock, it wasn’t yet chilly, but the wind was a portent of weather to come. The sun was peeking through the clouds as I walked through the inflatable entryway. I received a voucher for samples of five different kinds of beer (redeemable at various booths around the fenced-off area that comprised Rally Alley), and busied myself by visiting a variety of the sponsors peppered around the grounds. 

Norah, The Sheaf’s editor-in-chief, and I met up with the rest of the team, and we got our faces painted in variations of green, black and white while Saskatchewan’s own Matt Johner took to the small soundstage to regale the crowd with some live music. 

I was impressed by the quality of Johner’s voice and the sharpness of his band. Johner addressed the crowd with a sort of down-home charisma that won me over. Now, please do not read what I’m about to say as an indictment of Johner or his band, but there’s something I need to get off my chest. 

Matt Johner has a new song out entitled “Nothing Looks Good on You,” which he performed at this event. The song is a tongue-in-cheek testament to the good-natured plight of boyfriends everywhere who patiently wait as their girlfriends decide what to wear for an evening out. It’s not lost on me. The bone I have to pick with this song lies in the chorus. As suggested by the title, the refrain sees our narrator telling their sweetheart that maybe the couple ought to spend a night at home instead of out on the town because “nothing looks good on [her].”

I get the wordplay, but I couldn’t help but picture myself in the narrator’s shoes, telling a girlfriend that we had better stay in because nothing looks good on her. You can imagine the hypothetical consequences. All love to Matt Johner, who, along with his band, played a seamless set as a preamble to the main attraction. And speaking of, it was about time for our team to make its way to Griffiths Stadium. 

The weather had turned sour by the time the game got underway —  windy, cold and raining — but it didn’t seem to bother anybody. I thought of how Nyhus had described homecoming games to me. “Everyone is here when they come to Griffiths Stadium. Everyone is a Huskie. It’s a bunch of U of S students having a great time … They’re all here to support, so it’s just wind in our sails, and we use it as that.” As head coach Flory put it, “They’re here for us … Let’s give them something to cheer for.”

And that they did. Huskies running back Javin Boynton took the ball 81 yards down the sideline for a touchdown on the third play of the game. After a small amount of early adversity that saw the Dinos up 10-7 in the first quarter, Anton Amundrud threw a touchdown pass to Thomas Jule, which locked in a Huskies lead that, three quarters later, saw them victorious with a final score of 44-24. 

Besides the standout performance on the field, the other main attraction, the annual halftime toga run, was a resounding success. Before halftime, I got to interview four men dressed as chickens who, answering my questions in “buk”s and “cluck”s, expressed their satisfaction with an eventual Huskies win — I think. 

Later, as I sat on the sidelines, rain all over my glasses, I saw all four of the chickens in the middle of the toga run pack. The “Chariots of Fire” theme booming across the sound system made the whole thing especially cinematic. Something tells me that the toga run, which celebrated its 68th anniversary this year, will remain an integral part of USask tradition for the rest of time. As long as we have our toga run, things will probably work out okay. 

All in all, homecoming was another fantastic display of school spirit from our lively and passionate student body. The team won, the incredible story of Anton Amundrud shone even brighter given his masterclass performance, and a good time was had by all, rain or shine, toga or no. So … same time next year?