CALGARY

Football is such a game of emotion and momentum.

Ottawa RedBlacks' Brandon McDonald was wearing his emotion in his team's dressing room moments after the worst lost in his team's brief history - a 48-3 Saturday night shellacking courtesy of the hometown Stampeders.

With punt returner/receiver Chris Williams missing his second straight game with an injury, McDonald fumbled twice on returns, both huge momentum changers.

With the game well out of hand and starting quarterback Henry Burris already on the bench, Jovon Johnson coughed the ball up on another return.

All three turnovers resulted in Calgary touchdowns. Ouch.

"I didn't take care of the ball," said McDonald, who had seven tackles from his defensive halfback spot.

"I'm angry, I'm upset. I'm disappointed in myself. I expect to make plays, I expect to be the guy who can be depended on. I don't want to be the guy who's costing his team the game."

"I feel for (Brandon), he cares," said Burris.

"This is his first game being in that situation, it's tough on him."

"If you don't field the ball, you have to make sure you have the ball at the end of the play and we didn't do that tonight," said RedBlacks coach Rick Campbell.

"The turnovers were the huge thing, it was a ballgame. Giving them the ball like that, it's hard to overcome that."

Because the game didn't start until 10 p.m., the best thing for the RedBlacks may have been that some of their fans were getting tucked into bed and missed much of the ugliness.

It was every bit as bad as the score indicates.

"We're all disappointed and embarrassed because we think we're a better team than that," said Campbell.

"I don't know why it snowballed on us like that, I don't think it has anything to do with the time zone or anything like that. We weren't good enough; we've shown multiple times this year we can be good enough and we plan on rebounding and be good enough next week."

Pretty well everything went off the rails for an Ottawa team which had shown plenty of get-up-and-go in its past two games and now sits in second place in the CFL East with a 4-3 record, a game behind both Toronto and Hamilton.

Ottawa's running game was stuffed, with Chevon Walker carrying seven carries for 11 yards.

"It's a frustrating loss," said Walker.

"It's all about the next game, this game is done."

Burris, who showed some early spark as the RedBlacks responded to Calgary's touchdown after McDonald's first fumble, sputtered along with the rest of the offence.

He completed 7-of-17 passes for 114 yards before being yanked at the half with the RedBlacks trailing 31-3. Thomas DeMarco connected on 1-of-8 passes for seven yards before Danny O'Brien finished the game, completing 9-of-10 for 58 yards with the Stampeders letting Ottawa have everything underneath.

"They had a lot of schemes to make me uncomfortable in the pocket," said Burris.

"They took away the running game and made us one-dimensional. In this league, if you're second-and-long all the time, it's tough sledding."

"We weren't focused, we just didn't make enough plays," said McDonald.

"There are going to be good games, there are going to be bad days. There's nothing we can do about it now."

Next up is a game vs. the Argos in Toronto on Sunday.

"This will definitely motivate our group," said Burris.

"When we have setbacks, we bounce back, especially with a big game coming up against Toronto."

"We have a lot of games left. We'll come back, we'll fight," said McDonald.

"We expect to be one of the better teams in the league, we have to come back next week and beat Toronto."

One play we liked

With the RedBlacks only down 8-0, receiver Greg Ellingson made an amazing one-handed grab before bringing the ball in to his body. The gain was 34 yards and set up the only points of the game for Chris Milo, a 31-yard field goal.

One play we didn't like:

Ernest Jackson getting flagged for objectionable conduct after he motioned for officials to call pass interference. He may have had a good point, though the incomplete pass call stood after a challenge by the RedBlacks. It may be silly, but the refs are going to call it every time. The players need to know better, even if they have a legitimate beef with the guys in stripes.

What went right

Well, the RedBlacks had five sacks -- one each by Ettore Lattanzio, Marlon Smith, Zack Evans, Aston Whiteside and Keith Shologan.

What went wrong

There's not enough space to get into this. They didn't pass well enough, they didn't run well enough, they didn't tackle well enough. Tough to criticize the pass catching, not many drops; the QBs couldn't get the ball to them. Defensive back Abdul Kanneh injured his left leg, hit by a teammate on a tackle, and was wearing a boot after the game.

Offensive grade: F

They moved the ball early and then, inexplicably, it just stopped. Under pressure, the quarterbacks couldn't find open receivers and Ottawa was nowhere near establishing a running game. After good efforts vs. Calgary and Montreal at home, the RedBlacks took a big step back.

Defensive grade: C-

Given the number of points the RedBlacks gave up, this might seem like a high grade. But it wasn't all bad back there. The Stampeders started in great field position most of the game. Turnovers left the Ottawa defence hung out to dry and on the field too much.

Special teams grade: F

Need I say any more than three fumbles on punt returns. Brandon McDonald, with two, and Jovon Johnson both coughed it up. The first rule of returning punts: Catch the ball. Maybe Chris Williams will be back off injury to return punts in Toronto or maybe the injury is worse than they're telling us. The night was summed up when kicker Chris Milo rung a 36-yard field goal attempt off the goalpost late in the game.

The Big Number

3: Number of fumbles on punt returns, each leading to a Calgary touchdown.

10: Number of first downs for Ottawa. Enough said.

11: Number of yards rushing for Chevon Walker.

41.3: With regular punter Anthony Alix out of the lineup, backup QB Thomas DeMarco averaged 41.3 yards per punt.

48: Number of points the Stampeders scored on Ottawa, the most a RedBlacks team has given up in their two-year history.

The Man

Damaso Munoz. The RedBlacks linebacker was flying all over the field and had seven tackles. Surprisingly, the Stampeders had just 367 yards offence. So there were some good things happening.

Next Up

The Toronto Argos. It's amazing, really, how well the Argos have done in the face of such adversity. Kudos to their scouts and football ops people. With star QB Ricky Ray out, the Argos turned to Trevor Harris, who's been brilliant. They've been minus other key offensive components like Chad Owens and Andre Durie along with kicker Swayze Waters, who could return vs. the RedBlacks.

Coaches Challenge

Tough to take the coaches to task for any one element. But it looked like Ottawa got outcoached. Calgary seemed to have an answer for everything. It was a new look on defence for the RedBlacks, with linebacker Antoine Pruneau lining up at free safety at times. It worked early, but the Stampeders found the seams and started attacking the defensive backs. The RedBlacks have had success with the safe, short passing game, but the Stampeders were all over that.

Pivotal Performance

With not many pivotal performances from the RedBlacks side, gotta go with defensive lineman Ettore Lattanzio, a former University of Ottawa Gee-Gees star who was thrown into the game when the score was lopsided. He responded with his first CFL sack and made a tackle. All Lattanzio has done wherever he's gone is make plays.