EDMONTON

In Football 101's textbook of obvious facts, it says to beat another team, you've got to score more points.

Uh yeah, duh.

But to do that, to get the first win in franchise history, the Ottawa RedBlacks have a few things on their mind going into Game 2 of the season Friday night against the Eskimos.

Penalties. Turnovers. Special teams.

Take care of the first two and tighten up the third one and there's a pretty good chance they can beat the 2-0 Eskimos. Sure the Eskies are unbeaten ... but it's hard to imagine, coming off a 4-14 stinkaroo of a season, that they can't be handled by a team that's showing it can be much better than some people expected.

"Our guys are giving great effort on special teams and if we continue to do that, we'll get better and be fine there," said RedBlacks coach Rick Campbell. "The disappointing thing on penalties was it wasn't necessarily holding or things happening in play. It was happening after the play. If we eliminate those things, obviously it will help us out.

"I'll be very surprised (Friday) if it's a huge issue. I give the CFL credit. They're calling things closely - things like taunting and some other stuff after the whistle, which I'm all for. We just need to be smart about it."

Clutching the ball close will be a key. So far this season, the Eskimos have scored 32 points off turnovers. The RedBlacks, who had five sacks last week, will need to put some heat on Eskimos quarterback Mike Reilly and hope to get some turnovers of their own.

Eskimos coach Chris Jones said his team has to get its running game going with John White stepping in to start at running back.

"If you look at the successful teams over the years, they've been able to run the football," said Jones. "So we're going to keep banging at it."

He's analyzed whatever film he could get on the RedBlacks, but will also rely on certain tendencies he's picked up from the RedBlacks coaches over the years.

"We spent a lot of time watching last week's film," said Jones. "We've watched it over and over. I've almost got it memorized, all three phases. You have to know some of the background of the people who are calling the plays. You have a general idea as to what they like to do and what their philosophies are. And speaking specifically of their quarterback, I've been around him, I know what he likes to do. That's how we try to prepare. If you looked at the first three series of last week's game, they looked pretty good in all three phases. We've got our hands full, I can assure you."

There are several players wearing an Ottawa uniform who are familiar with the surroundings here. Linebacker T.J. Hill is one of them. But he says this is just another game; it's good to be back, but getting the 'W' is the important thing.

"Last week, I was thinking about the Blue Bombers, this week it's the Eskimos, next week it's the Argos," he said. "It's the most important game because it's our next game. I would say it's maybe different for the media and everybody else because of the hype."

Hill said the RedBlacks hope to take it one step further than last week when they stumbled late in the game and lost to Winnipeg.

﻿"No disrespect to the Blue Bombers, they made plays when they needed to make plays, but we felt like we let that one slip away," he said. "We pretty much had control until the final three minutes. We have to finish. No excuses. We're improving each and every day."

tim.baines@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @timcbaines