New Raiders coaches on CIS tour

Raiders coaches Dan Webb (far left) and Matt Gordon (far right) pose for a photo with UWO head coach Greg Marshall during a CIS tour in early May. Photo submitted.

The Chippewa Raiders new football coaching staff wants to learn. So when new head coach Dan Webb got the position, he thought it would be worthwhile to try see if he could learn from some of Canada's best.

The former Widdifield Wildcats Defensive Coordinator called Guelph University and the University of Western Ontario and set up a tour for himself and new Offensive Coordinator Matt Gordon in early May.

On the first leg of the CIS tour they met with Guelph University head coach Kyle Walters for a three-hour chalk talk session and then the new Chippewa coaches traveled to London, where the University of Western Ontario's coaches welcomed them with open arms.

"They gave us free run of the facility," said Webb about Western, a team that captured the Yates Cup (OUA) and lost in the Vanier Cup final last season.

"We were allowed to go wherever we wanted. We had complete access to all the coaches so any of the specific questions we had the coaches were right there and even at certain times they were willing to allow the players to do a specific drill just so that we could see it so we were humbled by that and how welcoming they were."

Webb hopes using this information will help him turn the Chippewa Raiders struggling football program around this fall.

"As coaches we need to make sure that we are doing things that make sense football-wise," he said.

"The game has really evolved in the past 20 or 30 years and we want to make sure what we are telling our athletes here makes sense that this is what is happening at the CIS and the higher levels and it allows our players to feel some success early on and when you are building a program like Chippewa it's really important that athletes feel success from the get-go."

Webb and Gordon are hoping to put that knowledge to good use when they host a Raiders Spring Evaluation Camp on June 8th to 12th.