It is mid April, which means that the Canadian Football League draft is around the corner. Which means names such as Canadian quarterback from University Sports, Canada West subdivision and the Calgary Dino’s very own starter QB Adam Sinagra, who lead the University of Calgary to a Vanier Cup championship and got 2018 Canada West male athlete of the year gets brought up. The Calgary Dino quarterback threw for 8,335 yards in their four-season long university career, along with 487 yards gained on the ground with 60 passing touchdowns and 2 rushing touchdowns. Such statistics and other information previously listed are very impressive. The last time we saw numbers like these was back after the 2018 U Sports season when the professional CFL team, Toronto Argonauts drafted former University of British Columbia quarterback Michael O’Connor in the third round. O’Connor did exceptionally better then Sinagra however throwing for 13,883 yards in their four-season long university career. O’Connor was the first and only quarterback to be selected in the 2019 CFL draft, going 20th overall. Throwing almost 14 thousand yards in U Sports is a rare occurrence, however. Throwing over 13 thousand yards rarely happens in the National Collegiate Athletics Association or NCAA for short, as well. This year’s top Quarterback in NCAA Division 1 football and Heisman trophy winner for the Louisiana State University Tigers, Joe Burrow in his whole 4 season long collegiate career threw for over 9 thousand yards. Interesting to see how O’Connor and Burrow compare on paper. There is a lot of stigma towards U Sports athletes however, and often in terms of football at least, U Sports products get looked down on compared to NCAA products. Therefore, the Canadian starting quarterback that plays for the Ohio Bobcats in D1 NCAA football, Nathan Rourke might receive more praise from professional American/Canadian football scouts across North America. Which might be why Rourke receives more attention from sports media more so than Sinagra. Which is why I am writing today’s blog entry on Rourke, as a recent popular Canadian football magazine/website 3 Down Nation, came out with an article written about Rourke.
Firstly, as you might know by now that Rourke is a supposed to be selected in the CFL 2020 draft, however Rourke has other goals in mind. As according to the article written by Justin Dunk for the popular Canadian football magazine/website 3 Down Nation titled “Canadian QB Nathan Rourke looks to former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo for inspiration,” Rourke said on the 3 Down Nation podcast that he would like to use former all star Dallas Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo as inspiration too both make and succeed in the National Football League or NFL for short. Rourke quoted on saying that Romo went undrafted in their draft class of the year 2003, and negotiated contracts with the professional NFL teams, Denver Broncos and Dallas Cowboys and was offered big money to play with Denver but knew he had a better chance of starting with Dallas so he chose to play for the Cowboys. (Dunk, 2020.) Romo went on to have a very successful career in the NFL as a quarterback, despite the fact that in 14 years Tony Romo never went to a Superbowl with Dallas, Romo still put up impressive numbers. Romo threw for 34,183 yards and 248 touchdowns with a 97.1 QB rating. Romo’s name will go down as one of the greats despite not winning a Superbowl for their impressive statistics. Rourke has an advantage over Romo however, Romo wasn’t very mobile even in his early NFL days, and Rourke is more so mobile. Tony Romo in his entire NFL career ran for 620 yards and you can’t find any rushing stats on Romo for his college career, while Nathan Rourke in just 3 seasons ran for over 2,500 yards. Now in days however it is more common for mobile quarterbacks to use their running game more often, however Rourke’s running game is phenomenal. Therefore, we as football fans need to keep that in mind, when comparing Rourke to any quarterback in present day, or even historically.
Being drafted in the CFL is more so a likely scenario for Rourke’s near future, but with that being said it’s important to keep in mind that Rourke’s passing percentage is 10% higher than his conferences average, which is something NFL scouts will look into and thus he might be placed under a negotiation list by an NFL team. Despite Rourke most likely going to be selected in the CFL draft more so than the NFL draft, Rourke remains optimistic in terms of playing in the NFL. As according the same 3 Down Nation article mentioned earlier written by Justin Dunk, Rourke says “That’d be something I see myself doing.” Rourke here was referring to what Romo did in his early pro football career and signing with an NFL team rather than being selected in the up and coming draft. (Dunk, 2020.)
According to the same 3 Down Nation article mentioned earlier written by Justin Dunk, Rourke had a more so productive collegiate career on paper compared to Tony Romo’s collegiate career. Rourke in his 3 seasons in his NCAA D1 football career threw for 7,313 yards and 60 touchdowns and 2,522 rushing yards with 48 rushing touchdowns, plus three receptions for 20 yards and 2 catching touchdowns. (Dunk,2020.) Compared to Tony Romo who may have had slightly more passing yards, but didn’t run a whole a lot, thus resulting in less touchdowns and total yards gained.
So how do I feel about all this? For starters, Rourke clearly has the heart to want to strive for excellence which is what a lot of scouts look for in a young player, as those types of players may not be an all star but will work harder to self improve compared to other young players, thus as a result professional teams can negotiate contracts at a cheaper price to pay the player, but get more reward out of it. Therefore, so as long Rourke continues to prove his worthiness to play in the NFL, he might just be the next Tony Romo, but a Canadian version at that.
For Touchdown Talks Canada, I am Big Al and I hope you enjoy your weekend!
For more information on how to reference my blog feel free to get a hold of me on my social media links provided at the bottom of this website.
My Refences:
Dunk, Justin. 3 Down Nation. Canadian QB Nathan Rourke looks to former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo for inspiration. April 17th 2020. April 17th 2020. https://3downnation.com/2020/04/17/canadian-qb-nathan-rourke-looks-to-former-dallas-cowboys-tony-romo-for-inspiration/