B.C. Lions announce Rick Campbell as new head coach

Rick Campbell helped turn the Ottawa Redblacks from a struggling CFL expansion team into a Grey Cup champion. The B.C. Lions are hoping he can do the same thing in Vancouver.⊃

The Lions introduced Campbell as the 27th coach in club history on Monday at a press conference at BC Place. He will be tasked with turning around a team that finished 5-13 last season under DeVone Claybrooks, who was fired in early November after just one year at the helm.

“The CFL’s a league where you make one or two tweaks to things, you add a player or two or a coach or two, and all of a sudden you find a way to win those close games and things can go in the right direction,” Campbell said. “I know how hard it is to win in this league. You have to do things right and surround yourself with good people and I think the sky’s the limit around here.

“Nowhere to go but up.”

Campbell is coming off six mostly successful seasons as the head coach in Ottawa, which included the Redblacks’ dramatic turnaround from a struggling 2-16 expansion team to a club that advanced to three Grey Cup games in four years, winning it all in 2016 with a 39-33 overtime victory over the favoured Calgary Stampeders.