How former Redblacks head coach Bob Dyce is returning to Ottawa the same way he left

Friday's game against the Redblacks brings Bob Dyce back to TD Place as special teams co-ordinator and assistant head coach of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

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The football gods carry no IOUs.

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They don’t favour dedicated, hard-working, good men.

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They don’t give a break to guys just because they deserve one.

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When Bob Dyce signed on as the special teams co-ordinator and assistant head coach of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in January, he not only joined a team that finished first in the Canadian Football League‘s East Division last year, but one many predicted was on the verge of winning its first Grey Cup this century.

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And then came a nasty curveball from the FGs.

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In a Week 5 game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, with the Tabbies on the verge of improving their record to 3-1, star quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell suffered a severe left ankle injury that would end his season.

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We all know how important the QB is to a football team, right?

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On Friday night, Dyce, who morphed from special teams co-ordinator of the Ottawa Redblacks in 2016 into their head coach in 2022, makes his return to the capital in a situation no better than the one he left almost 12 full months ago.

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Fired from his post as the Redblacks’ sidelines boss after a 4-14 record in 2025, he makes his “homecoming” with a team that is sitting at 4-11 and has been officially eliminated from the playoffs.

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Just like the 0-14 Redblacks were three weeks ago.

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“Anytime you have a future Hall of Famer as your quarterback, obviously you think you’re gonna produce a little bit better,” Dyce said when asked during a phone interview this week if Hamilton’s struggles this season could simply be attributed to the loss of BLM. “We all know how this business is. It doesn’t make a difference who’s behind the centre; you want to go out and win. Is (the injury) a factor in why we’re where we’re at? Partially. But we still just work every day to make sure we’re trying to be our best and that we do the things we need to do correctly with the guys that we are playing to be successful.

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“But it’s like Scott (Mitchell, the Tiger-Cats CEO) said in the paper last week. I don’t think this is what any of us anticipated, but this is the nature of the beast in this league. You look at the teams that have been or are being successful, normally they’ve had they’ve had their guy, right? So, yeah, we you go into the season thinking Bo plays 18 games. We have a very good chance, and you go from there.”

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Dyce might still be the head coach in Ottawa if his No. 1 QB here, Dru Brown, had not endured injury problems that kept him out of the lineup at the height of his career.

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Those in the game who truly like Dyce — and the number is high — were hoping he’d have better luck in his first year with Hamilton.

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What is the Redblacks’ situation heading into Friday’s game at TD Place?

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With their 0-14 record, they have lost 20 consecutive games dating back to last year.

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That’s a modern-day record for Canadian pro football, but also closing in on the all-time mark of 25 straight losses set by the Ottawa Senators/Rough Riders back in 1928-32.

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No team has had a winless season since the CFL was founded in 1958.