London, ON - Today's team recognition as part of the 2022 Mustangs Season of Celebration is the Mustangs Football Team.

The Mustangs came into the 2021 season with an shortened 6 game regular season so they knew each game was even more important towards their success. Western opened the season with a retribution win over McMaster, who beat them in the 2019 Yates Cup. The team then faced adversity for the first time in several years when they lost to Guelph in week 2 but the Mustangs would take that loss as a learning experience and get right back to their winning ways in week 3 when they topped Laurier and also saw the emergence of eventual OUA rookie of the year in QB Evan Hillock step into the leading role under center for the remainder of the season. Western would finish the season with three more wins and close out the regular season with a 5-1 record.

On top of Hillock being named OUA Rookie of the Year, Defensive Lineman Deionte Knight would be recognized as part of the OUA Major Awards ceremony as the recipient of the J.P. Metras Trophy as top Lineman of the Year.

In the playoffs Western would continue to show their dominance with wins over Waterloo & Guelph to book a berth in the Yates Cup against the east division leaders in Queens. The Mustangs would make a statement against their longtime rivals leading 14-0 after the 1st quarter and 26-0 at halftime, they would finish out the shutout with a 29-0 win and take the 33rd provincial title in program history.

Western would meet the St. FX X-Men in the Mitchell Bowl and it was evident early that the Mustangs had a quality game plan for their largely unknown opposition from the AUS and took a 23-0 lead after the first quarter and Trey Humes & Edouard Wanadi both ran for 3 touchdowns each and claimed the U SPORTS semi-final trophy for a third time.

With the Mitchell Bowl win, the Mustangs booked their ticket to the 56th edition of the Vanier Cup, this year being hosted at the University of Laval. In the days before the game, U SPORTS would recongize the major award winners for the season and Deionte Knight was named the winner of the U SPORTS J.P. Metra Trophy as the Most Outstanding Lineman of the Year.

Shifting to the game itself, to say the field and weather conditions were not ideal would be a under statement after snow, rain and freezing rain would wreak havoc on the national championship game. The first half of the game was fairly even, with the opposition Saskatchewan Huskies taking a 12-10 lead into half time. In the second half the Mustangs offence came alive with a pair of Griffin Campbell touchdowns of 50 & 17 yards respectively giving Western the lead at the end of the third quarter and would finish with the 27-21 lead and win the 8th national championship in program history. Evan Hillock was named game MVP & Daniel Valente Jr. was named defensive player of the game.

The team MVP's for the season was Keon Edwards



Bronze W recipients are: Matthew Adams, Craig Coleman, Keon Edwards, Mohsen Jamal II, Bruce Maas, Maxwell Nixon, Kojo Odoom, Ben Schmidt, Alexandre Veilleux

Graduating Ring recipients are: Pearson Brown, Jacob Zynomirski, Zachary Zynomirski

Congratulations to all those being recognized this season for their outstanding work representing the Mustangs.