VANCOUVER

When’s the last time the Grey Cup game featured a pair of first-year starting quarterbacks?

Who cares? It’s great for the CFL.

It’s no secret the 2014 season will be placed in the trash can and not in the CFL Season Hall of Fame. The addition of the expansion Ottawa RedBlacks diluted the talent pool and added more Canadians on offence, which is part of the reason why scoring dropped like a stone.

Another reason is the CFL was full of first-year gunslingers, although they couldn’t have been that bad considering two of them will square off in Sunday’s Grey Cup. Calgary’s Bo Levi Mitchell and Hamilton’s Zach Collaros both started games before this season, but those were only due to injuries to their respective starters ahead of them on the depth chart.

Montreal’s Jonathan Crompton and Winnipeg’s Drew Willy were full-time starters for the first time this year as well, and Edmonton’s Mike Reilly just completed only his second full CFL campaign as Edmonton’s primary hurler.

Not all of those quarterbacks are guaranteed to be long-term pivots in this league, as Crompton and Willy still have some proving to do, but the rest look like they have the tools to do so. Anthony Calvillo is retired, Kevin Glenn is on his last legs, Ricky Ray is coming off major shoulder surgery at 35 years of age, and the future of B.C.’s Travis Lulay is up in the air due to shoulder woes.

It appears the future of the CFL is now, and we’ll be seeing what could be the first big battle of the next generation this Sunday night.

NEW PRIDE LEADER?

The Jeff Garcia Watch is in full effect here on the West Coast, as the Alouettes quarterbacks coach, who isn’t expected back in La Belle Province next season, could be in the running for the Lions’ vacant head coaching job, if not the offensive co-ordinator spot if Khari Jones is out.

Lions GM Wally Buono had Garcia as his quarterback in Calgary when they won the 1998 Grey Cup, and the former NFL Pro Bowler lives in California, which would put him closer to his wife and four children were he to end up in Vancouver.

“Would I consider it if Wally approached me or wanted to talk about it? I can’t say I would say no,” Garcia told the Calgary Sun’s Eric Francis. “If I went to coach in Montreal as a quarterback coach, why wouldn’t I look at a head coaching job?”

Garcia joined the Alouettes after this year’s regular season had started. Montreal fired offensive co-ordinator Rick Worman in training camp, promoted Ryan Dinwiddie to co-ordinator and brought in Garcia to help out.

LATE HITS

The Tiger-Cats and Stampeders were scheduled to arrive in Vancouver late Tuesday night and will conduct their first practices on Wednesday ... From the department of corrections: The Argos were the last team to make it to the Grey Cup with a 9-9 record. Incorrect information appeared in Tuesday’s paper ... The players of the week for the division finals were Stamps quarterback Mitchell (offence), Calgary linebacker Juwan Simpson (defence), Tiger-Cats returner Brandon Banks (special teams) and Stampeders running back Jon Cornish (Canadian) ... Lowell Ullrich of the Vancouver Province reports the Grey Cup committee might give away the remaining 6,000 unsold tickets for Sunday’s game to members of the military, which is what they did in 1999 when the Stamps and Ticats battled at BC Place.

THE INSIDERS

CFL coaches and execs give their anonymous thoughts on hot topics:

I’m going to recommend Brandon Banks to every NFL scout I know. We want to get him out of Hamilton ... Calgary and Hamilton are two teams on different missions, but only one team’s character has been questioned. The Stampeders are out to prove something on Sunday ... Wally (Buono) made Mike (Benevides) fire Rich Stubler. The Lions defence gave up 50 points to Montreal two weeks ago. Now Buono’s going to watch Calgary and Stubler win the Grey Cup out in Vancouver ... Wally (Buono) will wait and see who is interested after Grey Cup. (Dave) Dickenson will not be a candidate ... B.C. should pay Dave Dickenson whatever it takes. Get Drew Tate, too. That’s how you start closing in on Calgary and Edmonton ... Bo Levi Mitchell passed for almost 350 yards last week. Four touchdown passes and no interceptions against a good Edmonton defence. They will beat Hamilton on Sunday, too. Mitchell is a future star. Ricky Ray’s team didn’t make the playoffs. When the Stamps win the Grey Cup, it may be time to start talking about Bo Levi as the best quarterback in the CFL ... Ottawa may look at guys like (Jason) Maas, (Ryan) Dinwiddie, Jarious Jackson and (Pete) Costanza for their offensive co-ordinator job ... (John) Murphy and (Eric) Tillman have gotten their coaches good players in Calgary and Hamilton. We’re only as good as the players our personnel guys get us. Right now, we don’t have players like the Stamps and Ticats ... Calgary wins easy if (Rob) Maver punts good. Directional kicking can help limit (Brandon) Banks. If the Ticats don’t win on special teams, they’ve got no chance ... Tom Higgins shouldn’t be criticized for not having a special teams co-ordinator, even though (Brandon) Banks scored two touchdowns on Sunday. Montreal hired other assistant coaches who helped coach special teams, and they encountered a good game plan that was well executed ... There may be some tweaks to the system, but I think the replay and challenges for pass interference calls are here to stay ... If the Stampeders and Tiger-Cats have something in common that played a big part in them getting to the Grey Cup, it’s playing through their injuries and making use of their flexibility with the ratio ... It would be interesting to see Jeff Garcia have to call plays and be all-in to coaching when he has a young family and other things on his plate ... Edmonton had bad luck with the (Mike) Reilly injury. Get him healthy, and they’ll have as good a chance as any of us next year ... (Scott) Milanovich and RedBlacks special teams coach (Don) Yanowsky could draw interest from NCAA programs ... Who’s slower? Nik Lewis or Andy Fantuz? A couple of my coaches run as fast as them ... Winnipeg has an issue when it comes to potentially changing their co-ordinators: Will there be better candidates on the street, and would they go to The Peg over other options? ... If they win, (Kent) Austin is going to be coach of the year. Should be him if they win the Cup.