Team president Jay McNeil backs veteran as GM/head coach for next CFL season
Dave Dickenson will remain on as both GM and head coach of the Calgary Stampeders into the 2025 CFL season.
Team president Jay McNeil threw his support behind dual-role Dickenson during a sort-of state-of-the-union address Monday, following the first year in 20 that the Stampeders failed to make the playoffs.
“Since Dave’s taken over as head coach, he’s got a record of 84 wins, 53 losses and one tie, he’s taken us to three consecutive Grey Cups (from 2016-18) and he’s won a championship in 2018,” McNeil told a gallery of curious media members at McMahon Stadium.
“He’s earned the right and the opportunity to turn this around in 2025,” continued McNeil. “And he has our full support.”
For many fans, the vote of confidence won’t sit well given the team’s recent shortcomings, especially those of the past few years.
Under Dickenson’s leadership, the Stamps have won just 11 of 37 games since the start of the 2023 CFL campaign, including just five this past campaign which caused them to miss the post-season for the first time since 2004.
“Eleven wins in the last few years is not good enough, and we’ve got to do something better,” said McNeil, 54. “So we’ve been working incredibly hard for the last several weeks to build a plan to give us success in 2025. And we’re excited about that plan — we believe in it. We’re excited about that, and change will be coming.
“I know fans want to see change today, but it’s a process and it takes time. But we will get there.”
That plan, says the first-year president, has been hatched by McNeil, Dickenson and special advisor John Hufnagel, who was the architect of three Grey Cups during his tenure as head coach and GM of the Stamps.
It includes becoming aggressive in free agency — a point of contention in recent off-seasons among many people, both inside and outside the organization.
“We believe in the plan,” said McNeil, himself a two-time title winner as an offensive lineman with the Stamps in both 1998 and 2001. “We’ve built the strategy of what we want to achieve for 2025, and we’ve outlined six items on how we want to get better …
“And it will be up to Dave to execute on that.”
Dickenson has been criticized for having too much on his plate as both GM and coach of the team.
During the 2014 Grey Cup-winning season, Hufnagel held both posts — as has been the case with Dickenson the last two years.
“People would assume that there’s a big workload for Dave during this season,” McNeil said. “But the reality is much of the general manager job is done during the off-season, and then we rely on the player personnel department during the season to be more active. That way Dave can focus on being a head coach.”
However, Dickenson’s head-coaching duties have also come under scrutiny, which is fair given the team’s lack of success.
But surely a shake-up of the coaching staff beneath him is forthcoming, especially after McNeil’s announcement Monday.
As well, Cole Hufnagel, the Stamps’ ninth-year director of U.S. scouting, has come under fire as the staff member in charge of identifying talent.
“We’ve evaluated all aspects of our football operations,” McNeil said. “And we’ve already set expectations about what we want to do from a recruitment standpoint and how we’re going to get there. And so we are going to work incredibly hard to deliver that.
“It is a process, and like any good business, we are going to evaluate all aspects of it. It does take time, and we’re not going to do knee-jerk reactions. We know fans want change — and they want them today. But that’s not the best way to do this process.”
McNeil confirmed a few other items Monday:
- A total of 32 Stamps are set to become free agents after the season.
- New Field Turf for McMahon is set to be installed in the coming weeks and ready for the 2025 CFL season.
- For the first time in nine years, the attendance for Stamps games flattened rather than fell, which is a positive on which to build on, says the president.
“Of course, we’re going to evaluate every aspect of our business,” added McNeil.
“It’s been incredibly hard. We expect a win every time we take the field, and obviously we haven’t done that over the last two years, and we’ve got to get back to fixing that. I hate losing more than I like winning, because I expect to win — and so losing’s been tough. I know the organization feels that way — from our ownership group right through our players and to our business operations.”
