Kyle Quinlan was quick to share the credit, but his numbers don't lie.
The fifth-year quarterback rushed for three touchdowns and threw for three other scores Saturday as the defending Vanier Cup champion McMaster Marauders demolished the Calgary Dinos 45-6 in the Mitchell Bowl to advance to their second straight national title game.
"I'm proud of the whole team effort," said Quinlan, who finished 25-of-35 passing for 412 yards. "We expect a lot of ourselves offensively, but to see the defence fly around like that was really exciting."
With the win, the No. 1 Marauders (11-0) extended their record Canadian university football winning streak to 21 games and set up a rematch of last year's thrilling Vanier Cup, which saw McMaster defeat the Laval Rouge et Or 41-38 in double overtime.
Laval crushed the Acadia Axemen 42-7 to win the Uteck Bowl on Saturday and advance to the Canadian university football championship, which will be held on Nov. 23 in Toronto.
"[Quinlan] is one of the best I've ever seen at this level. He does it so many different ways and the bigger the game, the better he plays," said Marauders head coach Stefan Ptaszek. "He comes up big on the biggest stages."
The dagger came late in the second quarter on Saturday when Quinlan hooked up with Brad Fochesato on a 61-yard touchdown pass to make the score 24-4 with 2: 25 to play in the half.
That touchdown came just under a minute after Quinlan scored on his second one-yard TD run of the game to make the score 17-4 after a McMaster fake punt that saw kicker Tyler Crapinga find Ben O'Connor on a five-yard passing play.
Quinlan, who finished with 50 yards rushing, then capped a clinical 82-yard drive to start the second half with an 11-yard touchdown run to make the score 31-4.
"The whole philosophy for the whole game was to turn these guys loose. We've been reining them in to get through our OUA season," Ptaszek said. "Today the philosophy was make plays from start to finish and don't stop."
Robert Babic was Quinlan's top target through the air, snagging 10 passes for 156 yards and a touchdown, while Fochesato caught four passes for 113 yards. Ben D'Aguilar led the way for the relentless Marauders defence, finishing with three of McMaster's five sacks.
Calgary quarterback Eric Dzwilewski was 10-of21 passing for 114 yards for the No. 3 Dinos (9-2), who saw their top-ranked offence stifled time and again. Dzwilewski was replaced by backup Andrew Buckley in the fourth quarter.
"It's very disheartening. I really felt our program was a competitive program," said Calgary head coach Blake Nill, whose team was held to just 200 yards on the day.
