Can Corey Chamblin beat Kent Austin, the man whose poster hangs on the side of the stadium?

REGINA—So much of the talk of Grey Cup week has centred around Hamilton Tiger-Cats head coach and general manager Kent Austin, who led the Riders to one Grey Cup as a quarterback in 1989 and another as a head coach in 2007 before leaving for the NCAA and then returning to the CFL this year with Hamilton. In fact, Austin's so important locally that there's a giant poster of himon the wall of Mosaic Stadium. The Riders have moved on from Austin, though, and they have a renowned head coach of their own now in Corey Chamblin, who's proved very adept at handling the spotlight, even besting Austin with his answer to the traditional sex question earlier this week. Will Chamblin be able to best a Saskatchewan legend Sunday and seal his own place in Riders' history? Well, we'll see, but his journey to this point suggests he's long been able to adapt and roll with the punches. Facing a man whose poster hangs on the stadium's just another challenge for him, and Chamblin said this week he has a good reason to not be bothered by it.

"I actually come in the other way," Chamblin said to laughter at the coaches' first press conference.

Some coaches might well be bothered by the presence of an adversary on their own stadium, but Chamblin said he embraces the Riders' history.

"One thing I never want to do is remove those ancient landmarks," he said. "That's part of the foundation. The Riders wouldn't have the Cups they have without Kent and Richie [Hall, the current Riders' DC] and all those guys, and we're just trying to build on all the things those guys did in the past."

It may be easier for Chambin to not be intimidated by Austin given that he has a pretty solid coaching legend in his own corner; Pittsburgh Steelers' head coach Mike Tomlin, who was Chamblin's position coach when he played defensive back for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002. Chamblin said Tomlin's help has been crucial to his career.

"Mike was a great mentor," Chamblin said. "When I was a young player with Tampa, I got the chance to see him coach at a young age, coach with fire enthusiasm and be very detailed. When I got into the coaching business, he was one of the guys that would help straight away and say some of the things that I should do. I would stay in contact with him as far as different things along the way, not so much the X's and O's, but just how to handle yourself, how to win championships, how to coach."

There's an interesting parallel between Tomlin and Chamblin, as Tomlin became just the second African-American head coach (after Tony Dungy) to win the Super Bowl in 2009. With a victory Sunday, Chamblin would become the second African-American head coach (after Pinball Clemons) to win the Grey Cup. However, Chamblin said while he's glad to see more opportunities for minority coaches, he doesn't see skin colour as all that important.

"Everything's really evolving, whether African-American, Hispanic, or whatever it is, it just means the world has become more open," he said. "It doesn't have to be about colour. That doesn't make you any more or any lesser."

Chamblin's been able to adapt over the years, too. He came to the CFL by chance in 2007, after a year working as a DB coach in NFL Europe. Chamblin met with his agent at the Senior Bowl and heard Winnipeg was looking for a DB coach. His early reaction wasn't overwhelmingly positive.

"I was like, where the hell is Winnipeg?" he said with a laugh. "What I had pictured was that it was probably going to be a gas station and one motel."

Chamblin had a CFL connection, though, through current Toronto Argonauts' defensive coordinator Chris Jones. Jones, then the DC in Calgary, coached Chamblin in college at Tennessee Tech, and set up a meeting for him with Winnipeg head coach Doug Berry. Chamblin didn't think he made a good impression, though.

"I interviewed with him, and I'm like, 'That didn't go well,'" Chamblin said.

Steve Simmons of The Toronto Sun reported that Jones helped Chamblin get the job despite his interview, though, and Chamblin picked Winnipeg over another opportunity in NFL Europe. He's been in the CFL ever since, coaching the Bombers' DBs in 2007 and Calgary's DBs from 2008 to 2010, then working as Hamilton's defensive coordinator in 2011 before being named the Roughriders' head coach in 2012.

Interestingly enough, for all the talk about Austin's experience, he and Chamblin each have exactly two CFL seasons under the belts as a head coach; Austin in 2007 and 2013, Chamblin in 2012 and 2013. Thus, it definitely shouldn't be a firm conclusion that Hamilton has a coaching edge Sunday. It won't be an easy job for Chamblin, though. He'll have to handle a lot of pressure, with the Riders established as favourites and their home crowd eager for a Grey Cup win. He said this week that he doesn't mind that pressure, though.

"The thing about having pressure is how you deal with it," Chamblin said. "I think, by having some of the veterans we have and having that core of a football team, we took that pressure and applied it to ourselves. It's not that we need to do anything special for the fans that we wouldn't do for ourselves. We're all extreme competitors in that room and we used all the outside pressure."

Some complain about Regina as a fishbowl for coaches and players thanks to its small size and the market's rabid interest in the team, but Chamblin embraces that.

"I've heard all kinds of stories, but it's actually pretty good," he said. "They're great fans. That's the thing; people hear that you live in a fishbowl, but I actually enjoy it. There's a lot of love here. ... You know that everything you do is going to be under a microscope, but not in a bad way."

Chamblin's definitely going to be under that microscope Sunday. We'll see if he's able to again embrace that pressure with the Grey Cup on the line.