1995 CFL season

1995 CFL season
Regular season
Duration June 28, 1995 – October 29, 1995
Playoffs
Start date November 4, 1995
North Champions Calgary Stampeders1995-11-12
South Champions Baltimore Stallions1995-11-12
83rd Grey Cup
Date November 19, 1995
Site Taylor Field, Regina
Champions Baltimore Stallions
1994 ← CFL seasons → 1996

The 1995 Canadian Football League season was the 38th season of the CFL, and the 42nd in the modern era of Canadian football.

CFL News in 1995

Expansion, relocation, folding and realignment

Two more United States-based teams were admitted, the Birmingham Barracudas and the Memphis Mad Dogs. In the off-season the Sacramento Gold Miners moved to San Antonio to become the San Antonio Texans. The Texans would play their home games at the Alamodome, which is the only American stadium designed and built to accommodate a regulation Canadian football field. In the previous season, the Las Vegas Posse, after a terrible inaugural season, ceased operations and folded. The Baltimore Football Club finally found themselves a new nickname and christened themselves the Stallions at the beginning of the second week of the season.

With the admittance of the Barracudas and Mad Dogs, the CFL undertook a realignment. The longstanding alignment of East and West was discontinued. All five U.S.-based teams would play in the South Division, while all eight Canadian teams would compete in the North Division. Five teams from the North and three from the South would qualify for the playoffs. To make up for the disparity, the lowest-seeded North Division playoff team (which ended up being Winnipeg) played in the South Division playoffs against the top South Division team, in a precursor to the CFL's current crossover playoff rule.

Uniform changes

The Toronto Argonauts revealed an all-new logo and colour scheme. Their new colours were dark blue, slate green and metallic silver. The new logo design was based on the "Jason and the Argonauts" premise featuring a side profile of a helmeted warrior facing one side and holding up a round shield with an "A" on it.

The Birmingham Barracudas released the design of their logo and uniforms prior to the season. Their team colours were black, blue, teal and burnt orange.

The Memphis Mad Dogs unveiled their new team colours as forest green, burgundy, black and gold.

All three teams got new jerseys with an unusual template. The jerseys had the team's primary logo printed super large on the lower part of one side of the jersey while player numbers', which were much smaller in size, on the opposite side of the player's upper torso. Similar jerseys were being used by teams of the World League of American Football.

As the Sacramento Gold Miners became the San Antonio Texans, they changed their logo from a pick axe striking gold to a logo of a head of a cowboy with a black hat and a red bandana scarf imposed on a large star. They also added burgundy to teal, old gold and black as their team colours.

The Ottawa Rough Riders reverted their team colour of light navy to black. They kept the colours metallic gold and red. The logo that was unveiled last season was retained with black substituting over from light navy. Also after the 1995 season, in time for the 1996 ( and what would sadly be their last ever season) the Rough Riders also returned to using a black helmet from a metallic gold one and back to black jerseys as they had worn from at least 1976 to 1993 inclusive instead of the red ones they wore in 1994 and 1995.

The Grey Cup

The city of Regina played host to the Grey Cup game for the first time. In the game, viewers at home and at Taylor Field witnessed the Baltimore Stallions defeat the Calgary Stampeders, 37–20, becoming the first (and only) American team to win the Grey Cup.

Regular season standings

Final regular season standings

Note: GP = Games Played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against, Pts = Points. Teams in bold qualified for the playoffs.

North Division
Team GP W L T PF PA Pts
Calgary Stampeders 18 15 3 0 631 404 30
Edmonton Eskimos 18 13 5 0 599 359 26
BC Lions 18 10 8 0 535 470 20
Hamilton Tiger-Cats 18 8 10 0 427 509 16
Winnipeg Blue Bombers 18 7 11 0 404 653 14
Saskatchewan Roughriders 18 6 12 0 422 451 12
Toronto Argonauts 18 4 14 0 376 519 8
Ottawa Rough Riders 18 3 15 0 348 685 6
South Division
Team GP W L T PF PA Pts
Baltimore Stallions 18 15 3 0 541 369 30
San Antonio Texans 18 12 6 0 630 457 24
Birmingham Barracudas 18 10 8 0 548 518 20
Memphis Mad Dogs 18 9 9 0 346 364 18
Shreveport Pirates 18 5 13 0 465 514 10

Grey Cup playoffs

Main article: 83rd Grey Cup

The Baltimore Stallions were the 1995 Grey Cup champions, defeating the Calgary Stampeders 37–20 at Regina's Taylor Field. The Stallions became the only American team to win the Grey Cup. The Stallions' Tracy Ham (QB) was named the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Player and the Stampeders' Dave Sapunjis (SB) was the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Canadian.

Playoff bracket

November 4 & 5: Division Semifinals November 11 & 12: Division Finals November 19: 83rd Grey Cup @ Taylor Field – Regina, SK
         
S3 Birmingham Barracudas 9
S2 San Antonio Texans 52
S2 San Antonio Texans 11
South
S1 Baltimore Stallions 21
N5 Winnipeg Blue Bombers 21
S1 Baltimore Stallions 36
S1 Baltimore Stallions 37
N1 Calgary Stampeders 20
N3 BC Lions 15
N2 Edmonton Eskimos 26
N2 Edmonton Eskimos 4
North
N1 Calgary Stampeders 37
N4 Hamilton Tiger-Cats 13
N1 Calgary Stampeders 30

CFL Leaders

1995 CFL All-Stars

Offence

Defence

Special teams

  • P – Josh Miller, Baltimore Stallions
  • K – Roman Anderson, San Antonio Texans
  • ST – Chris Wright, Baltimore Stallions

1995 Southern All-Stars

Offence

Defence

Special teams

  • P – Josh Miller, Baltimore Stallions
  • K – Roman Anderson, San Antonio Texans
  • ST – Chris Wright, Baltimore Stallions

1995 Northern All-Stars

Offence

Defence

Special teams

1995 CFL Awards

References

  1. ↑ "CFLapedia".
Preceded by
1994 CFL season		 CFL seasons Succeeded by
1996 CFL season
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