Guelph Gryphons coach relishes another shot at Western Mustangs: ‘Main rival’

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Mark Surya sounded the warning bell for his Guelph Gryphons football players this week.

“I was trying to tell these guys this is what you have to prepare for,” the first-year head coach said ahead of their playoff clash with Western Saturday at 1 p.m., “and they’re like, ‘Coach, what are you talking about? We haven’t seen this on film’… I told them I’ve played against Greg Marshall enough. This is what he’s going to do.

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“I’ve had enough non-successes to be able to show you what is going to happen.”

Surya also has enjoyed some great moments.

“When I was playing at Queen’s, we beat them in 2007 in overtime at London,” the former Gaels wide receiver said. “Mike Giffin scored the winning touchdown in Greg’s first year (as Western head coach). We were a young team that grew up and won the Vanier Cup two years later.”

The path to that victory was an unforgettable 43-39 triumph over Western in the 2009 Yates Cup at Kingston.

“We had beaten them in the regular season on a last-second play to get home-field advantage,” Surya recalled. “I remember (Western quarterback) Mike Faulds threw a great ball to a receiver on the one-yard line. Greg didn’t go for it. He kicked a field goal, which I thought was weird for him.

“He always goes for it.”

On the final play of the final, Faulds rolled left on a torn anterior cruciate ligament that caused him to collapse on his knee. He miraculously avoided a sack to give the Mustangs a chance to win, but Queen’s survived.

Four years later, the Western legend was hired as head coach at Laurier. Early in his tenure, he needed a receivers coach and recruited an old adversary, Surya.

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“I was in grad school at Laurier,” the Gryphons boss said. “We played against each other forever. He said, ‘Do you think you can come help me out with receivers? I’ll do some volunteer work.’ We fit well together. He’s the reason I got into coaching as a career. He made it so enjoyable. When you catch the bug, it becomes something you want to do all the time. He made me the offensive co-ordinator after a year. He was 29 and I was 23. I thought, ‘This is insane’… But he’s a good leader of men and that’s how it started.

“We put a team together and we were able to beat Greg in the Yates Cup.”

That was the astonishing 2016 final when the Golden Hawks rallied from 18 points down in the fourth quarter to beat Western 43-40. Nothing felt better for Surya.

“When I played at Queen’s, Western was my main rival,” he said. “That was the No. 1 game you got up for. When I was with Mike at Laurier, I swear we must have played them 10 times and every year, our season ended at their stadium. We had to get them and that ’16 game was our time.

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“I tell everybody this: When you win the Yates, it means more than the national semifinal or championship, which is weird to say. But it’s the teams you know well and play against year-after-year to try to beat.”

This meeting is curious that way. The two combatants haven’t met during the past two years because of scheduling quirks.

Surya was part of the Guelph coaching staff in 2021 when the Gryphons handed the eventual Vanier Cup champion Mustangs their only loss. From there, Western reeled off an incredible 30-game conference win streak until Faulds’ Golden Hawks ended that Sept. 14.

“I always laugh,” Surya said. “Our guys haven’t played Western much but it seems like with Gleas (Mustangs defensive co-ordinator Paul Gleason) and Greg, it’s a familiar cast of characters that I love going against.

“Greg always has these teams ready to go. The Western train keeps rolling.”

Now, he will attempt to derail it again. If he does, he will face either his old boss at Laurier (Faulds) or his alma mater (Queen’s) for the Yates Cup.

“Mike is an extension of Greg Marshall,” Surya said. “What I learned, how he runs his team and treats his coaches, is something I try to emulate. When I got my chance here at Guelph, you’re hoping we can capture some of that magic and have that same type of mentality. We had the top three offences but we’re all completely different. That’s the fun part of football.

“I’m trying to prepare our guys and tell them if those Western stands are full and that horse is galloping around – all those things I remember – it’s hard to recreate. It’ll be a learning experience for us no matter what happens.”

rpyette@postmedia.com

OUA FOOTBALL

SEMIFINAL GAME

Western (8-1) vs. Guelph (7-2)

When: Saturday, 1 p.m. at Western Alumni Stadium.

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