MONTREAL – Sophomore quarterback Arnaud Desjardins threw five touchdown passes, four of them to receiver Kevin Mital, as No. 4 ranked Laval survived an eye-popping offensive display from McGill en route to a 37-20 road victory before 2,375 at Percival Molson Stadium, Saturday.

McGill (0-1) racked up 36 first downs and 566 yards of net offence in a losing cause against the perennial champion Rouge et Or (2-0), which registered 20 and 418, respectively.

The result spoiled a spectacular debut for McGill freshman Eloa Latendresse-Regimbald, arguably the top recruited quarterback in the country, who came as advertised. The 6-foot-4, 185-pound pivot from Montreal passed for 391 yards on a 21-for-41 aerial attack, with one touchdown pass – to sophomore Benjamin Bergron-Spenard of Brossard, Que., – and two interceptions. Equally impressive, the elusive quarterback was also the game's leading rusher with 132 yards on 11 carries, becoming the first field general in school history to reach the century mark for  rushing in a game.

"It didn't end up the way we wanted it to but we had a lot of fun on offence. We did some great things out there but have to keep improving each week," said the 20-year-old physical education major who was McGill's first rookie quarterback to start a season since 2011 when 18-year-old Dallon Kuprowski became the youngest QB in school history to do so.  

"For my first game, I'm pretty proud of how it went," added Latendresse-Regimbald, who admitted that he was quite nervous about his first start but that lasted just until the first play. "The guys around me just shone (on offence) and we're just getting started... We fumbled the ball on their one-yard line and I made a couple of mistakes, misreads and could have thrown a better ball on those occasions... But we're going to correct those things in practice and come back stronger next week."

Latendresse-Regimbald found five different receivers, led by seven catches apiece for William Langlais (152 yards) of Chicoutimi, Que., and Darius Simmons (111 yards) of Lachine, Que.

Laval led 14-3 after the opening quarter, 28-10 at halftime and 28-17 after three. The Redbirds frittered away a number of scoring opportunities – committing five turnovers, compared to Laval's one – including a fumble by Simmons on the Laval one-yard line with nine seconds remaining in the third quarter. A TD on that play would have reduced the gap to 28-24, assuming a successful one-point conversion.

"We had an up-and-down performance," said Ronald Hilaire, in his ninth season as head coach and defensive coordinator at McGill. "I was amazed at how well our offence (clicked) so quickly... But we have a lot of things to clean up, some turnovers and other stuff to work on.

"Defensively, we've got to be better. If were going to get this kind of offensive production, we can't allow 37 points against. They made us pay on a long kickoff return, and a blocked punt, so we have to work on special teams as well. That said, for our first game in the RSEQ this season, where we missed an opportunity to reduce the score to 28-24 if we hadn't fumbled at the one-yard line, it was quite impressive to do that against a strong team that was playing it's second game."

Laval's Mital, who set a single-game school record for TD receptions, opened the scoring at 2:27 of the first quarter, with a 26-yard TD catch. Eight minutes later, he hauled in a nine-yarder to put the visitors up 14-7. He snared his third TD, another 26-yard effort, with 2:43 remaining before halftime and capped off his superb soiree with a 37-yard major at 9:35 of the final stanza. Mital ended up with eight catches for 134 yards,

Desjardins's fifth TD toss was a 14-yard bullet to David Dallaire to put the Rouge et Or ahead 28-10 with 73 seconds remaining before halftime.  The Laval quarterback, a sophomore, was good on 23 of 27 passing attempts for 343 yards and no interceptions.

Rounding out the scoring for the Rouge et Or was a safety touch midway through the final stanza and five conversions from kicker Vincent Blanchard – who missed his only field-goal attempt, 37 yards.

McGill's other touchdown was a hard-fought, one-yard plunge by running back Zacharie Magnan, a geography junior from Shawinigan, Que., which reduced the deficit to 14-10 late in the second quarter.

Completing the scoring for the Redbirds was kicker Antoine Couture, who went 2-for-2 on field-goals, including a 16-yard effort in the first-quarter and a 40-yarder in the fourth. The psychology junior from Montreal also had a pair of converts, averaged 33.6 yards on five punts and 47.0 yards on four kickoffs.

The Rouge et Or were assessed 11 penalties for 113 yards, while McGill was flagged 10 times for 95 yards of real estate. Laval won the battle at the line of scrimmage with a 3-0 advantage in sacks.

Up next for McGill (0-1) is a game at Sherbrooke (1-1) on Friday, Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. The Vert & Or are coming off a 24-23 come-from-behind victory over visiting Concordia (0-2), after the Stingers blew a 19-0 lead.

Laval (2-0) will confront the Montreal Carabins (1-0) on Sept. 10 in their first showdown since U de M wrestled away the RSEQ conference's Dunsmore Cup  championship with a 28-19 victory last November.

REDBIRDS RAP: Leading the McGill  defence was DB Thomas Raphael, who registered 5.5 tackles with five of them solos... The game was delayed for 17 minutes at 4:42 of the second quarter when McGill defensive back Philippe Trudel, a physical education freshman from Trois-Rivieres, Que., suffered what appeared to be a serious leg injury... McGill's 48-man dress-roster against Laval featured 10 freshmen, nine sophomores, 12 juniors and 17 seniors... A list of McGill quarterbacks who became starters as a true freshman includes Eloa Latendresse-Regimbald (2022, 20 years, 7 months old), Dimitrios Sinodinos (2017, 20.9), Dallon Kuprowski (2011, 18.7) Jonathan Collin (2009, 20.9 ), Michael Ghorayeb (2005, 19.9), Josh Sommerfeldt (1998, 19.7), David McKinnon (1997, 19.5), Vic Pywowarczuk (1976, 19.1) and Kevin Smith (1975, 18+) and Uldis Auders (1971, 20+). Another 18-year-old "rookie" who started as a sophomore after being redshirted in his freshman campaign was Dan Smith in 1969.

BOXSCORE

RSEQ STATS & STANDINGS


SOURCE
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-398-7012 (Tel.)
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca