“I could throw for the least amount of yards and the least amount of touchdowns and we could rush for the most in the league. If that’s what it takes to win I want to be a part of that and bring it home to Hamilton.”

In 2016, it was Henry Burris that stood under the confetti, his face stuck in a permanent smile while he held the Grey Cup. A year before that it was Mike Reilly. Before that, Bo Levi Mitchell.

Having gone through a full training camp and feeling fully healthy for the first time in over a year, Zach Collaros wants to get back on the CFL’s biggest stage and wants to finally see the black and yellow confetti of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats falling around him.

Collaros missed the first seven weeks of the 2016 season, recovering from the torn ACL he’d suffered in September, 2015. In 10 games, he threw for 2,938 yards with 18 touchdowns and eight interceptions, while rushing just seven times for 39 yards. His rushing numbers were down to their lowest since his rookie year in 2012 with Toronto, where he only had three carries in four games for 17 yards as a bit part of the Argos’ Grey Cup-winning squad.

He got his first taste of live game action last week in the Ticats’ preseason finale against the Argos. He made 10-17 passes for 126 yards and had one touchdown, with his playing time stretching into the second quarter of his team’s eventual 23-16 loss.

“It’s always good to get your feet wet,” Collaros said. “Getting hit a couple of times, it gets you back into game mode. It’s hard to simulate that stuff and that’s why I think it’s important to play a little bit in the pre-season.”

Those in-game situations are impossible to duplicate. Standing in the pocket, making quick decisions and even taking those hits that he hadn’t had to absorb over the last seven months, he said, all felt good.

“Any time you play the game you love and have the opportunity to do that it’s a lot of fun,” Collaros said. “I think we have a great group here so that makes it more fun and easy too.”

It was a lot more fun than Collaros was having this time last year. He knew he had to be patient with his rehab, and that backup Jeremiah Masoli could hold his own as a starter in his absence, but football moves on from its injured players the second they’re helped off the field. The game continues and legacies are formed as it rolls along.

Collaros stayed positive as he worked out and continued to heal, but there was a lot of time to think and a lot of thoughts crept into his head. His injury reinforced to him just how quickly a season or your career can be taken from you.

“You think about that every day that you’re out on the field, whether it’s practice or a game,” he said. “The injury that I had sustained was kind of a fluke thing. (There was) no contact. You never know when your last play is going to be. You have to approach that (play) like it is your last. Same thing with practice. I’m very grateful for the position I’m in and I try to live up to the expectations that I set for myself every day.”

That includes the expectation to be the league’s best quarterback; a conversation he was a part of pre-injury in 2015. Talk of if he’s fallen back in that conversation in the last two seasons isn’t costing him any sleep.

“You always want to be the best at the position that you play,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s bothersome, especially when some of the people that talk about it don’t really know what they’re talking about anyway.

“It’s something to keep working at and all that matters is who’s holding the trophy at the end of the year. That’s all that we’re playing for.”

With a big arm and the ability to move the ball with his feet, a healthy Collaros means everything to the Ticats’ hopes this year. If he had to put the offence on his back to get Hamilton its first Grey Cup since 1999, he’s willing to do that. It also goes the other way for the 28-year-old.

“I could throw for the least amount of yards and the least amount of touchdowns and we could rush for the most in the league,” he said. “If that’s what it takes to win I want to be a part of that and bring it home to Hamilton.”