Mount Allison Mounties football
The Mount Allison Mounties football team represents Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick in the sport of Canadian football in U Sports. The team has been in continuous operation since 1955 when they played an exhibition schedule and then officially joined the New Brunswick Football League (NBFL) in 1956. The Mounties program was an inaugural member of the Maritime Intercollegiate Football League (MIFL), which was a precursor to the current sporting association, Atlantic University Sport. The team has twice appeared in the Vanier Cup, once in 1984, and again in 1991, losing both times. The  Mounties have won six conference championships in 14 appearances, including four straight from 2013 to 2016. Only one Mounties player has won the Hec Crighton Trophy, Canadian Football Hall of Fame member, Éric Lapointe, who won the award twice and has since had his number retired by the program. Recent history. In June 2008, Kelly Jeffrey was named interim head coach for the 2008 season and led the Mounties to a berth in the playoffs for only the second time in the new millennium. Under his tutelage, quarterback Kelly Hughes was named the AUS Most Valuable Player. After this season , Jeffrey was named full-time head coach. 2009 saw the Mounties go 0-8, but Gary Ross was named AUS MVP, the first time since 1991 and 1992 (Grant Keaney) that Mounties were named MVPs in back-to-back years. 2010 was the resurgence of the Mounties, led by second-year quarterback Jake Hotchkiss, who that year became the second Mountie quarterback under Jeffrey to be named an AUS All-Star. The Mounties went 4-4 and hosted the AUS Semi-Final for the first time, which was also the first home playoff game since 1998. Jeffrey was named the  AUS Coach Of the Year, the first Mountie to receive this honour since John MacNeil in 1996. The Mounties finished second in the AUS conference in 2010 and hosted their first home playoff game (conference semi-finals) since the new millennium. Another 0-8 season in 2011 was followed up by a successful 2012 which had the Mounties in the playoffs again, and boasted the AUS leading rusher (Jordan Botel) and the emergence of a new leader at quarterback, freshman Brandon Leyh. The 3-5 Mounties also experienced an offence without either Gary Ross or Adam Molnar, as this was  the first season without one of the two star receivers in the lineup. In 2013, the Mounties won the Loney Bowl for the first time since 1997. They followed up that campaign with their first undefeated season in the AUS, posting an 8-0 record en route to their second consecutive Jewett Trophy championship. In 2015, the Mounties finished in first place in the AUS regular season with a 5-3 record and hosted the Loney Bowl for the second consecutive season. They were also looking to win their third consecutive Jewett Trophy but would end up falling short to  the St. Francis Xavier X-Men 24-18. 2016 would be the first season with Scott Brady as the team's new head coach, who had been with the team as an assistant coach since 2010. Brady was the first permanent head coach in the program's recent history who was both a Mount Allison graduate and former player for the Mounties. The team ended up making the playoffs as the second place team. They would defeat the Acadia Axemen 27-18 to compete in their fourth straight Loney Bowl but would end up losing to the St. Francis Xavier  X-Men 29-8. In 2017, the team would see their five-year playoff streak come to an end as they missed the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Following a coaching change, with Peter Fraser as the team's new head coach, the team would regress further with a 2-6 record. In 2019, the team lost their first four games of the season, but then won their next three and eventually finished with a 3-5 record and enough to qualify for the playoffs. Mounties in the professional ranks. Mike Filer was the most recent former Mountie  players to appear on a CFL roster when he played during the 2019 CFL season with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Former Mountie player (1991–93) and assistant coach (1994–97) Ted Goveia has been in the CFL for a number of years, currently holding the post of Assistant General Manager and Director of Player Personnel with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.