Scott Radley: McMaster Marauders beats York Lions but there’s work to do

Look up the word weak' in the online thesaurus and you'll find 51 synonyms. Which is a lot but still isn't a complete list. Two are missing.

York and Lions.

My goodness, that football outfit is a mess. Two games into the season - both losses - the Toronto school has been outscored 80-9. Throw in the pre-season game this year and that rises to 148-9. And go back two games into last year to make it a five-game sample size and the cumulative score is 237-16.

It's ugly.

Mentioning all this isn't intended to kick them when they're down. Instead, it's to paint a picture of who the McMaster Marauders were facing on Saturday in their home opener at Ron Joyce Stadium. This was as close to a guaranteed win as a team could ever have on the schedule.

They did.

The maroon dumped the Lions 39-1. In doing so they convincingly put their first notch in the win column after an opening week loss to Carleton. They took care of business and did what every team that wants to have success has to do, namely win the games they're supposed to win.

The defence was excellent. It held York to 191 total yards, picked off three passes and never really looked to be in any kind of trouble. The opponent may not have been tremendous but you can only stop what you're facing. They did that.

Also big were the special teams which were very good. New kicker Ben MacDonald has been terrific in two games so far. A little too good, perhaps.

Huh?

We're kicking a lot of (field goals)," head coach Stef Ptaszek says. The score-zone offence has got to be better."

Not to get too picky after a much-needed win but he's absolutely correct.

Forget the final score for a moment. Yes Mac put up 39 points but it didn't get its first touchdown until there were 19 seconds remaining in the first half. And the home side scored 20 of its points in the fourth quarter when York's defence was exhausted after being on the field for much of a scorching day. Ptaszek pointed this out himself.

It wasn't that the offence couldn't move the ball. It did. It did some good things. It would just get close to the end zone and stall.

That's obviously not good enough," quarterback Andreas Dueck says of taking almost a full half to get a TD. We've got to be better in that area of the field."

It's a concern. You can get away with this against a team that's lost its last nine regular-season games mostly by lopsided scores. You don't win doing that most of the time.

So what's the issue?

Dueck - who was sacked six times for the second-straight week - says sometimes it just takes a while to settle into things. Ptaszek suggests there are just some things to clean up and get sorted. Both could be correct. Either way, they'd better figure it out soon.

Next Saturday they host the University of Ottawa. The week after, they're in Waterloo. Then a bye. And then it gets scary. Western followed by Guelph and Queen's.

Point is, they already lost a game to Carleton they probably should've won. They can't afford another loss before running into the sharp teeth of the schedule. Which makes next weekend exactly how big, coach?

It's freakin' important," Ptaszek says.

Despite the concerns, there are some positives coming out of this contest for the offence. The Marauders were five-of-six in the Red Zone on Saturday. Most college, CFL or NFL teams would be happy with that stat. It's something to build on for the rest of the year.

But as the coach and the quarterback both acknowledge, there's scoring and there's scoring.

We've got to score when we get inside the 30," Ptaszek says. Touchdowns, not field goals."

Scott Radley is a Hamilton-based columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sradley@thespec.com