From EWU to the CFL: Mitchell and Nichols lead historic matchup of hot teams

There's not a lot that hasn't previously happened in the 65-plus-year history of the CFL, but we're getting something very new this Saturday when the 10-1-1 Calgary Stampeders host the 8-4 Winnipeg Blue Bombers. According to the league office, this is the first clash in CFL history between two teams with winning streaks of seven (Winnipeg) or more (Calgary's won nine straight) games. It also features two starting quarterbacks who are having great seasons and played at the same school, Eastern Washington University. Those quarterbacks, the Stampeders' Bo Levi Mitchell and the Blue Bombers' Matt Nichols, took part in a CFL teleconference Wednesday, and had fascinating things to say about each other, their shared alma mater, just how their teams got so hot and more.

While Nichols and Mitchell are rivals now, they weren't always. In fact, Mitchell said Nichols hosted his EWU recruiting visit out of high school, which left a good impression and led to him eventually transferring to the school from SMU in 2010 (the year after Nichols graduated).

"Matt was a huge reason I went to Eastern Washington," Mitchell said. "He was my host. Him and (former Edmonton and Winnipeg DE) Greg Peach, they were guys that showed me all around. Me and Matt had a hell of a night that night, and honestly, it was a big reason I went there. It gave me that feeling of guys that want to play football to play football. They weren't there to get paid, they weren't there to get big recognition, they wanted to play football to win football games. I kind of got back into that winning culture. I went there and kind of picked up right where Matt left off (Nichols led EWU to an 8-4 mark in 2009, Mitchell then helped them improve to 13-2 and a Division I FCS national championship in 2010). Ever since then, we've always kept in touch, always been friends. I've met his family, he's met mine, we all see each other. We train together a lot."

Nichols said both he and his wife even wind up cheering for Mitchell at times.

"We're friends off the field, and I hope the best for him," Nichols said. "Sometimes when we're watching Calgary play, my wife will cheer when Bo throws a touchdown or something, and I look at her like, 'Hey, we need them to lose.' But it's kind of funny, because I have friends around this league, and Bo's one of those guys I'll always root for unless we're playing them."

Mitchell said he and his wife do the reverse for Nichols and other EWU alums, like Montreal backup QB Vernon Adams Jr.

"My wife's always cheering for [Nichols], and we hope Vernon will get on the field soon as well," he said. "Anybody from Eastern, we all have that family mentality. I want him to do well on the field when I'm not playing against him, but when I play against him, I want him to ball out, but lose the game."

Nichols said he also has to put friendship aside when they play, but it's not hard to pick it up afterwards.

"It's one of those tough things, but we're friends before and after the game, and we're going to go and compete," he said. "We had a good battle last year, and I texted him after the game and told him I look forward to many more battles against each other, and this is another one for us."

It's remarkable to see two quarterbacks from the same school going head-to-head in the CFL, especially when there are lots of QBs from bigger, more prominent schools in the CFL. However, many of the league's best quarterbacks (and many of its starters) have come from smaller schools, and there are some ways smaller schools can be an advantage in developing pro quarterbacks. One is that they often allow their quarterbacks more control over the offence and the play-calling and emphasize reads and on-the-fly decision-making more than the highly-regimented offences at many larger schools. Mitchell said decision-making should be a key part of quarterback evaluation.

"One thing I've always noticed, and something I'll take into the coaching ranks whenever I become a coach when my career's over, is I think too much is made of the physical—hand size and height," he said. "Obviously, I'm biased in that because I'm not a 6'3'', 6'4'' (Mitchell is listed as 6'2'', 196 pounds) prototypical guy, but the main thing I see is that no one's ever testing decision-making. How fast could you process information, and how often can you make the right decision in a quick moment? I think that's the biggest thing. You're going to find guys who can throw the ball, you're going to find guys who can make huge plays with their feet, but it's about the guys who when the pocket breaks down and the D ends up running straight at you or the zero blitz comes at you or they drop nine guys and you've got to still dodge three, how fast can they make that decision to know 'Where do I need to go with the ball? How am I going to get it there? What situation is it, what down and distance? Do I need the ball out of bounds?' It takes a lot to process that. I don't know the exact way to do it, but to me, I'm going to find a way to test a guy on how fast he makes a decision and how often he's right or wrong."

Nichols (who's listed as 6'2'', 214 pounds) concurred, and said Eastern Washington head coach Beau Baldwin helped emphasize that to him and Mitchell with his system that focused on giving the quarterback a lot of responsibility.

"I think Bo hit the nail right on the head with all that, and I think a lot of that is stuff we learned from Beau Baldwin," Nichols said. "He's a guy that has three starting quarterbacks in this league (the third is Mike Reilly, who played at Baldwin's previous school, Central Washington), and four quarterbacks up here right now. The biggest thing to me is at a lot of colleges, you see guys looking to the sidelines for checks and those types of things. Everything was put on us in college. You were supposed to watch film, you needed to see certain looks for these checks, and change plays, and here's your hot throws. In that offence we played in in college, a lot of quick-game passing was basically an extension of the run, which is a lot of what the CFL is. The run game is kind of tough to get going with two downs sometimes, so you have to be able to throw those kind of six, seven-yard passes to take over for your run game, so that was something we all learned in college. For me, that was the biggest thing."

Nichols continued by saying Baldwin's emphasis on quarterbacks learning, adapting and having quarterbacks make their own calls has been criticial to the success he, Mitchell and other EWU quarterbacks have found.

"He put so much on us as quarterbacks," Nichols said. "His thing was 'You go out there and change things, make mistakes, and we'll talk about it afterwards.' It helps you grow as a player, and I think a big reason guys from Eastern have had success is he's a guy who doesn't judge by the measurables or whatever scouts want to look at. He's a guy that watches the game film and sees who can play ball and who can't. And he's done a great job of finding some great quarterbacks and coaching those guys up and I can't say enough about him. I think he's been the biggest in my development, and he's still a guy I talk to. Each and every week, we have text messages back and forth. My biggest thing is that I think too much is kind of taken away from quarterbacks these days, where they're looking at the sidelines for plays rather than studying film to be able to go out there and do things on the fly in a quick moment like Bo was talking about."

Mitchell said that former NFL, NFL Europe, AFL and CFL quarterback Erik Meyer helped establish Eastern Washington as a place where both Nichols and himself would eventually succeed.

"The guy that first laid the groundwork for both of us was Erik Meyer," Mitchell said. "He's a guy that if he took a different route is probably still in professional football, based on age and everything. He was a guy that had a couple of different NFL shots, which is probably why his name never really got to the CFL, and he was in arena football for a long time and did a lot of great things there. I think he kind of set the stage for that once Beau took over down there, and then Matt and Beau got to put together something that was their own. I saw the culture, and that's kind of what it was to me."

Mitchell said Nichols' performance at EWU was especially impressive considering what he was working with.

"Matt was the guy that everyone on that offence got behind, and he didn't have, I'm sure he'll say differently, but he didn't have the best talent around him," Mitchell said. "He had guys that were serviceable, he had a great tight end that he took advantage of, but his receivers were guys that became better because of him. He did a great job of spreading the ball around, and I think that's always a sign of a truly good player, someone who makes the guys around him better. And I think he did a good job of that; he won a lot of games and set a lot of records, and he kind set the bar for us young guys to come in after him and continue."

Nichols said he keeps the EWU connections with him to this day.

"It's a true family atmosphere at Eastern," he said. "Every time I go back, seven years removed, I'm welcomed into the locker room, the coaches' offices, 'We'll have you talk after practices,' pictures are up all over the offices. I think it just builds that family culture."

Eastern Washington made national headlines for installing red turf in 2010 (Mitchell's first season), and Nichols said that helped further establish the program's identity.

"It's awesome because I think it did exactly what they wanted it to," he said. "It kind of made it a place of their own, a place to protect, and they've done really well on it and gotten national recognition. I played there in long grass, muddy games, and it's kind of wet and cold in Washington, so that's something I never got to play on, but it's there now. I live in Cheney (where Eastern Washington is located), I have a house there, and I do a lot of offseason training there, so when it's raining out, I've got a FieldTurf field to play on. It's definitely a little different, but like I said, it's awesome for the university, and it's done a great job of getting them that recognition and builidng that culture that they don't want to lose on the red turf, and giving it a nickname, "The Inferno," so I think it's been great for the school."

As per the CFL, both Nichols and Mitchell have found career-high success in some ways this year. Mitchell has thrown for 3,936 yards so far through 12 of 18 games, so he's on pace to easily surpass the career-high of 4,551 he posted last year, and the 8.9 yards per pass he's averaging are well above his career average of 8.4. He said a lot of that is about his own increased experience.

"It's a combination of me seeing the field better, understanding all the defences better, and knowing where I want to get the ball out to," Mitchell said. "Honestly, once you understand the game as well as I feel I do right now, and your offence, everyone around you understands the game. Sometimes that yards per catch kind of gets miscued...guys are going down there, making big plays, but we're also seeing a lot of hot routes, guys taking the ball, breaking tackles, and getting yards after the catch. To me, it's just making sure I see the field better, understanding everything and honestly, I think right now what we're seeing is more about that."

Mitchell said his offensive success this year is thanks to that mental side.

"The biggest thing to me is you've got to understand your offence, you've got to understand every situation you're in," he said. "'What situation are we going into? What are we trying to accomplish out of that?'"

Meanwhile, Nichols said it's about confidence for him and his team.

"It's that overall attitude," he said. "We feel like we're going to put up points every single drive, and I think that's the attitude you want to have going into games."

Mitchell said he thinks a lot of Nichols' success this year has been about Winnipeg really giving him a chance and building an offence around him.

"It's nice to see him get to control the offence and run it his way, and I think you're seeing the success follow that," he said.

A big part of Nichols' success to date has been how he's only thrown one interception. He said part of that's from being more experienced in Winnipeg's offence then he was immediately after being traded there last year, and reading the field better as a result.

"It was getting that experience last year and going through some of those growing pains, and even though I'd been in the league for quite a while, I was very limited in my starting experience," Nichols said. "I just feel like the game's slowed down a lot  for me."

Both Mitchell and Nichols are playing well at the moment, so it will certainly be interesting to see which quarterback comes out on top Saturday. Both said they're not overly focused on the streaks, though, and Mitchell said while this clash of the titans works out well for fans, his team's trying not to focus on their streak or Winnipeg's streak too much.

"It's obviously great for fans, great for everybody else out there, it's obviously great for both teams to be on the winning streak that we're on, but at the end of the day, somebody's winning streak is going to be up," he said. "We've got to make sure we go out there, don't overthink it, and don't see them as guys who have won seven in a row, see them as who they are, a football team coming in, in the division, trying to take a win on the road."

Calgary hosts Winnipeg at 4 p.m. Eastern Saturday on TSN, RDS2 and ESPN3.