Masoli looks the best of Ticat QBs in pre-season opener

There is not going to be a quarterback controversy on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, mostly because Kent Austin is not going to let there be one.

And he's got a posse helping him avoid that kind of distraction: the quarterbacks themselves.

But the rest of us left Saturday's Canadian Football League friendly against the retooling Montreal Alouettes recognizing that Jeremiah Masoli is a lot closer to battling third-year Cat Dan LeFevour for the No. 2 spot on the pivot pecking post than he is to battling second-year Cat Stephen McGee for No. 3.

McGee did not play Saturday as Austin ran with, obviously, Zach Collaros to open the game and gave all three quarterbacks the opportunity to work with those projected starting receivers in uniform. He got a better bang for his comparison buck.

Collaros did nothing to raise any alarm bells and just looked like a starter out there, emitting confidence and control. He completed five of his eight passes for 52 yards.

But Masoli was the best quarterback on the field, throwing for three touchdowns during his 25-minute shift, completing 9 of 12 passes for 137 yards, running the ball well, engineering a 105-yard scoring drive and executing a perfect "hot" read to an alert Cary Koch.

LeFevour, for whom Austin instituted a special basically running package over the final 14 games of last year's schedule as a counterspin to Henry Burris, completed only 4 of 12 passes and was intercepted twice.

Austin said he was unable to comment on LeFevour's outing until he'd seen game film. What he likely noticed there was LeFevour being clobbered as he released the ball on one interception and a mixup in route direction on the other.

The ever positive LeFevour felt there were many pluses to his stint and other facets that he could quickly learn from. But he acknowledged this is not an imaginary skirmish for No. 2, and showed team-first class in praising Masoli.

"He had a great game," LeFevour said. "There's always a battle, there really is. It's pro football. Whoever has the hot hand is going to get a chance to play. I wouldn't be surprised if he got more of an opportunity to play next week (in Toronto)."

Neither would anybody else who was there Saturday, or has been around since April when Masoli was the most noticeable Ticat in mini-camp.

LeFevour's charitable approach says a lot about how Austin is nurturing his quarterbacking group. He spends a spectacular percentage of his time with them, and has repeatedly emphasized to them what he says to the rest of the team's subunits: that the coaching staff doesn't differentiate between starters and backups as much as they closely analyze whether whoever is in the game is performing like a starter.

"We expect all our guys to play well," he said. "We're always evaluating. But we're going to need multiple players in multiple positions to win championships."

Those might be just words had they not been acted out last season with the LeFevour modifications and Masoli contributing to a key late-season win over Montreal. That active reinforcement of spoken principles was not lost upon either of them.

One thing to keep in mind is that this is all about the No. 2 position and it's about a single exhibition game. If there were more evidence and this was about the starting job, it would be a boiler, but it will remain, for the most part, a back-burner item.

The public co-operative attitude of all the quarterbacks will also help keep it there. LeFevour says it's important to maintain a positive attitude "or things can drive you crazy," but also points to last year's starter as an emotional instruction manual.

"Honestly, I think Henry had the best attitude," LeFevour said. "Being the clearcut No. 1 and coming out of the game and being OK with it? That's someone I really learned from.

"Henry had such a great attitude last year. He was a great role model for situations like this."