CALGARY – Adam Sinagra's incredible 569-yard passing performance in Friday night's 37-28 win over the Saskatchewan Huskies has the U SPORTS football world buzzing, and it's also sparking renewed interest in one of the most unbelievable single-game performances ever on a football field.
St. Francis Xavier's Paul Brule, who was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame last weekend, once scored eight touchdowns in a game, way back in 1967, a record which still stands as the oldest in the national university football record book. Fifteen years later, fifth-year University of Calgary Dinos quarterback set what could be an equally insurmountable record: 627 passing yards in a single game.
Sinagra seemed to be in striking distance of that number early in the fourth quarter last Friday night, but with Vavra – his former quarterback coach – watching the game in the stands at Saskatoon's Griffiths Stadium, the fourth-year Dinos pivot settled for second on the all-time single game list. His performance was nothing short of brilliant: 32-for-40, 569 yards, three touchdowns, zero interceptions. He was quite rightly named the Canada West offensive player of the week for his efforts and should see the national honour come his way this week after already taking it in Week 1 following a season-opening win at Regina.
"I felt like I was locked in on my guys and I knew where to go with the ball every time, but it's never perfect," said Sinagra, who was visibly surprised when informed of his passing total at the end of the game.
Jack Neumann, the Dinos' longtime sports information director, joins Vavra on a very small list of people at both record-setting games.
"I didn't know [Sinagra] was that close until the end. I don't think they were going for the record – I knew they had 500 yards and saw a couple big plays," said Neumann. "I don't think we'll ever see another game like Greg's – but both teams, now and in 1983, had great receivers, and the game is so different now.
"It was pretty special to be present at both of them."
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On October 7, 1983, the Dinosaurs took the field against the Saskatchewan Huskies at McMahon Stadium locked in a battle for first place in the Western Intercollegiate Football League with the Huskies and UBC Thunderbirds, in an era where only the top two teams met in a playoff game for the Hardy Cup. Vavra was a fifth-year quarterback who had been to tryouts with the Edmonton Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders but had not been able to stick in the CFL to that point. He was on his way to the Hec Crighton Trophy – an honour almost certainly made possible by the publicity generated for his 627-yard game – and the Dinos were still six weeks away from capturing the program's first Vanier Cup title.
The Huskies ran out to a 24-3 lead late in the second quarter, but Vavra took charge and cut the deficit to 24-13 at half time. In the second half, he went off: 15-for-16, 323 yards, and five touchdowns as the Dinos took off, running away with a 61-30 victory and a share of first place. At one point, Vavra completed 20 consecutive passes, finishing the night 29-for-40, 627 yards, and six touchdowns. At the time, it was the best single-game passing total in any level of football above high school: the NCAA record in 1983 was 621. Only once in CFL history has that number been eclipsed: Matt Dunigan's 713 yards for Winnipeg against Edmonton on July 14, 1994.
Josh Borger was his top target, wrapping up the night with 12 catches for 259 yards and three TDs.
"The most amazing part was that we didn't make any great catches," Peter Connellan, the Hall-of-Fame coach of the Dinos, told Steve Simmons of the
Calgary Sun. "But we didn't have to. We made the easy catches, and that's all we had to do. Greg made it look easy.
"We made adjustments at halftime, I turned to Greg and said: "You call the plays, OK?"
"We played at home against Saskatchewan, and it was just one of those nights where things lined up," Vavra said Friday night after watching Sinagra's performance. "The game slowed down for me and I had a lot of open receivers – we had some talented receivers on that team in 1983 – it's just one of those things. Even Adam tonight – you don't know when it's going to happen, it's just a spontaneous thing.
"When I came out midway through the fourth, it wasn't until they announced it that I knew," he said, echoing Sinagra. "I knew I had racked up some yards, but I didn't know I was over 600."
The fifth-year quarterback was also the Dinos' placekicker and had a hand in all but 13 of the Dinos' points in the game. As the WIFL's teletype press release – dutifully archived by Neumann – explains, in addition to the six TD passes Vavra scored "two field goals, one single, and six converts."
"We were just a 2-2 at that point in the season, and [Saskatchewan] had us on the points for and against," said Neumann. "We lose that game, we maybe don't even get to the Vanier Cup. That game essentially turned our season around. We had never won a Vanier Cup, we hadn't been to the Vanier Cup since 1975. We didn't lose a game after that.
"That game put our program in the national spotlight, and kept it there for the next five years." The Dinos would go on to add Vanier Cup titles in 1985 and 1988 to their 1983 championship.
The performance landed Vavra in
Sports Illustrated's 'Faces in the Crowd' among a litany of other honours.
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Reaction to Vavra's achievement 35 years ago sounds oddly familiar today.
"They're a bunch of jerks in the CFL, and you can quote me on that," then-Saskatchewan Head Coach Val Schneider told the
Calgary Herald's Mario Toneguzzi after that game. "When you see a performance like that you have to wonder if the CFL has got to get its head examined because quarterbacks in that league come here with 'USA' tattooed on their behinds and automatically play."
As it turned out, Vavra went on to play five seasons in the CFL with the Stampeders, Eskimos, and B.C. Lions, but the Canadian quarterback debate continues more than three decades later. Another of Vavra's Dinos protégés,
Andrew Buckley, would go on to become the first Canadian quarterback to score a touchdown in the Grey Cup since Russ Jackson in 1968, but a Canadian pivot has yet to land a full-time starter's role.
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Vavra, who has stepped back from an active coaching role with the Dinos in 2018 but remains heavily involved with the 5th Quarter alumni group, has been impressed with Sinagra's growth into an elite U SPORTS quarterback.
"He's made steady progress in the three years that he's been here," he said. "They have a dynamic offence and he has some great weapons to throw to. He's maturing as a quarterback and starting to make good decisions, and he had a good game tonight."
Sinagra, meanwhile, isn't about to dwell on what might have been as the team gets set for another tough road game, this one at UBC on Saturday night.
"I missed it by 50 yards? Well, I shorted Tyson (Philpot) on the post, so that could have been it. But we got the W, so I don't really care.
"[Greg] is a great mentor, a great guy, and he has done so much for the city of Calgary and Dinos Football. It's just awesome to have him around."
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