B.C. Lions’ Mathieu Betts ‘really confident’ Laval Rouge et Or will claim inaugural Jacques Dussault Cup over Montreal
Photo: Jaclyn McKee/B.C. Lions
Mathieu Betts may have a CFL football game to play on Saturday night in Regina, but his heart will be 2,466 kilometres away in Quebec City in the lead-up to kickoff.
That’s where the B.C. Lions’ defender’s alma mater, Université Laval, will be taking on the Université de Montréal in the RSEQ conference championship. Even seven years removed from his final game for the Rouge et Or, Betts maintains a fierce rooting interest.
“I’ve got a lot of things to say about that,” he grinned when asked to preview the game.
“It’s gonna be fun. The matchup against a young quarterback for Montreal and a fifth-year guy from Laval — I like the matchup. I watched the second game that was played in Quebec City. I think the Laval defence played really, really well, and I feel like it’s going to come down to that Laval defence stopping Montreal’s offence. I’m really, really confident that it’s going to be a Laval win tomorrow and the first-ever Jacques Dussault Cup winner.”
Laval, the most successful program in Canadian university football, went 7-1 this season, with their only loss coming on the road against rival Montreal in mid-September by a 38-28 margin. However, the Rouge et Or got their revenge by knocking off the Carabins at home a month later, winning 16-6 in front of a record crowd of 21,399 at Stade Telus.
The Carabins, who finished the regular season 6-2, are led by first-year quarterback Pepe Gonzalez, the favourite to win the Peter Gorman Trophy as the top rookie in U Sports. He led the RSEQ with 2,284 passing yards and 19 touchdowns, but was not named a conference all-star. That distinction went to the RSEQ MVP, Arnaud Desjardins, a two-time Vanier Cup winner who completed a national best 75.6 percent of his passes for 1,873 yards, 14 touchdowns, and four interceptions in his final season of U Sports eligibility.
The latest clash between the pair will mark a historic moment for football in Quebec, as the RSEQ’s recently renamed conference title will be handed out for the first time. Known as the Dunsmore Cup since 1984, it will now be dubbed the Jacques Dussault Cup in honour of the Carabins’ first head coach — complete with a new trophy.
Despite his Laval affiliations, Betts is supportive of that change.
“I’m happy that they honoured Jacques Dussault. He was a tremendous actor in football in Quebec, so I’m really happy that he was honoured,” he said. “I saw the new cup — a little weird to me. Hopefully, the guys take great care of it when they win tomorrow.”
Betts is one of the most accomplished players in Laval program history. After turning down a scholarship from Purdue to stay close to home, he won the Peter Gorman Trophy as a first-year in 2015 and went on to collect three consecutive J.P. Metras Trophies as Canada’s top university lineman. Along the way, he helped the Rouge et Or win a pair of Vanier Cups.
That success has continued at the professional level, where Betts is a two-time All-CFL selection with the Lions. He won the league’s Most Outstanding Defensive Player award in 2023 and is a finalist for the same honour this season after leading the CFL in sacks.
Those exploits prevent him from viewing every game his alma mater plays, but he stays as connected to his roots as possible.
“When it’s on TV and we don’t play at the same time, I really like to watch the games. Last time they played against Montreal, me and Adam (Auclair) were watching it at my place. I keep track of what they do, and a lot of the guys that I played with are now young coaches on the staff,” he said.
“Glen (Constantin), Juice (Justin Ethier) and Marc (Fortier) are still on the staff, and they have been forever. I keep track with the coaches that coached me, the young coaches that I played with, and even the young players now. Once in a while, we talk on Instagram, just to congratulate them and to tell them that we’re behind them. It’s really exciting, and I really love to follow the Rouge et Or, for sure.”
Laval and Montreal are slated to kick off at 1:00 p.m. EST on Saturday, November 8, which means Betts should know the result before he and the Lions face the top-seeded Saskatchewan Roughriders in the West Final at 6:30 p.m. EST.
En route to their 12th Vanier Cup title last season, the Rouge et Or had to secure a narrow 17-14 victory over the Regina Rams in the national semi-final. Playing on the same field at Mosaic Stadium with a similar goal in mind, Betts hopes for the same result with less drama.
“That would be nice. Hopefully not as stressful as the game was last year, where Arnaud Desjardins had to drive the field on that last minute there,” he chuckled. “If we have to do it, I feel like (Nathan Rourke) could do it. I didn’t think about that, but hopefully, we rewrite history the same way. That would be pretty cool.”
