He’ll miss Michael Reilly’s wit and football acumen, but Canadian Nathan Rourke feels ready to be the B.C. Lions full-time starting quarterback.
Reilly, 37, retired last week to end a solid 11-year CFL career that saw him win two Grey Cups (2011, ‘15) and the CFL’s outstanding player honour (2017).
Rick Campbell, the Lions head coach/co-GM, named Rourke, a 23-year-old Victoria native entering his second season with B.C., as the team’s starter for training camp.
Reilly casts a large shadow. He threw for a CFL-high 3,283 yards last season with 14 touchdowns and just six interceptions despite battling an elbow ailment all year.
“I certainly feel comfortable in the offence … and (Reilly) certainly helped me get to that point, there’s no doubt about that,” Rourke said during a telephone interview. “He’s a big personality, a great leader, a fun guy to be around and someone who’s great for the locker room.
“There’s definitely room for me to step up and fill that a little bit in my own way. Players like that are important and for a reason: They have an affect on and off the field.”
The six-foot-two, 209-pound Rourke started two of the 13 games he appeared in last season as a CFL rookie. He completed 52-of-82 passes (63.4 per cent) for 754 yards with three TDs and five interceptions while rushing 18 times for 111 yards (6.2-yard average) and five touchdowns.
Rourke started B.C.’s season-opening 33-29 loss to Saskatchewan on Aug. 6 before Reilly started the second half. Rourke’s second start came in the Lions’ season-ending 43-10 home win over Edmonton on Nov. 19.
Rourke finished 23-of-34 passing for 359 yards with a TD and two interceptions and ran seven times for 34 yards and three touchdowns in the season finale.
B.C. selected Rourke in the second round, No. 15 overall, in the 2020 CFL draft after a stellar career at Ohio, where twice he captured the Jon Cornish Trophy as the top Canadian playing NCAA football. But the league didn’t play last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the CFL resumed action last summer, Rourke said Reilly taught him how to be a professional.
“In college, you’re following a very strict regimen of this is when you work out, this is what you’re doing when you work out,” Rourke said. “There are many expectations and things that are spelled out for you.
“Watching Michael and what he did to stay in shape, how he prepared for opponents every week and seeing his process helped me develop my own. I got to see one of the best do it in practice every day, all the little tricks he knows about defences, the offence we were running, the timing of certain things, what the footwork should be … he knew it all. He’d seen it, ran it a thousand different ways and just him being in the room really helped me pick up things quickly.”
Returning to the field also allowed Rourke to erase whatever doubts the layoff had created.
“The biggest thing I learned last year is I should have confidence in myself and my abilities,” he said. “A year without playing football you’re like, ‘Man, am I even good enough to be a professional at this point?’
“But the guys who were on the team and part of (Lions) organization, playing before some tough crowds and performing at a high level with some unbelievable players against us on the other side of the ball all kind of gave me the confidence to know I definitely belong here and have what it takes to lead an organization in the CFL.”
Like all CFL teams, B.C. has been busy this off-season trying to lock up top pending free agents before the start of free agency next Tuesday. Offensive linemen Sukh Chungh, Joel Figueroa and Philip Norman have all been re-signed, as have veteran receivers Bryan Burnham, Lucky Whitehead and Dominique Rhymes.
B.C. is also reportedly interested in adding Kenny Lawler (64 catches, league-high 1,014 yards, six TDs for Grey Cup-champion Winnipeg last season) in free agency.
Rourke said, like Reilly, Whitehead and Burnham are veterans with an infectious work ethic.
“What I love about them as a young guy, and I told them this last year, is I really appreciated how they came to practice every day and worked really, really hard,: Rourke said. “You can look at guys like that and say,’ ‘Hey, if anyone can afford to take a day off it would be them because they’ve earned it.’
“But they never did.”
Rourke feels the Lions have made it easy for him to concentrate on learning the pro game and not the significance of being a Canadian-born quarterback in the CFL.
“The greatest compliment I’ve received from people within the organization is they don’t really care (of Rourke’s nationality),” he said. “I’m really proud to be part of an organization that’s just playing the best players … and they’re doing it because they feel like we can win (with people) regardless of where they’re from.
“I downplay it (being Canadian quarterback) but I don’t want to downplay it, if that makes sense, because it’s important young quarterbacks in Canada realize they can play professionally and I think it’s important they’re given chances. But it’s not something you think about on a day-to-day basis.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 1, 2022.
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press