Michael Faulds set to meet his old team in a matchup with massive meaning in the OUA

Over the past year, the purples in Michael Faulds’s life have changed shade.

They’ve gone from the purple and gold of the Laurier Golden Hawks to the purple and white of the Western Mustangs. As Faulds and Western hit the final week of the OUA’s 2026 regular season, those colours are about to run together. Laurier comes to Western Alumni Stadium on Saturday.

The Mustangs are 6-1. They’ve clinched a playoff spot and still have a shot at finishing first.
For the first time since 2022, the Golden Hawks aren’t part of that first-place fight. Laurier is battling for their playoff lives.

Faulds can see both sides of this one.
 
Whatever odd emotions might be swirling inside, he knows what a desperate opponent can mean for his current team.

“You know what’s at stake for them,” Faulds says. “They’re going to show us everything and give us everything they have, like we expect. And our goal, once again, is to go 1-0.”

For Faulds, this is business.

“The last thing you want to do is go into the playoffs not peaking and not having momentum. So, each and every week, we’re trying to get better. We think we’ve done that over the last couple weeks, and we need to do that again this week.”

With a three-way tie at the top of the OUA, fans will be watching the scoreboard. A Queen’s win over McMaster locks up the No. 1 seed for the Gaels, along with the all-important first-round playoff bye.

So the Mustangs don’t fully control their own fate. Faulds says that’s no reason to keep checking on the Marauders and the Gaels.

“At the end of the day, we have to win. It does us no good if Mac wins, but we lose.”

At this time last year, Faulds was leading the Golden Hawks through an unbeaten regular season that included a 60-13 win over the Mustangs.

Laurier had the top quarterback and two of the top receivers in the country, but Queen’s edged them 30-27 in the Yates Cup.

Do 13 seasons on the Laurier sideline, from 2013 to 2025, give Western an edge this week? Likely not much of one.

“Like us, they have a lot of new people in different spots,” Faulds says. “And like us, there’s a new starting quarterback. There’s new offensive linemen and defensive players here and there.”

The goal never changes: get to the Yates Cup, win the Yates Cup and find a road to the Vanier Cup.

This year, that road is a challenging one. The Yates Cup champion will meet the Canada West winner.

That matchup is a little like an airplane flying overhead. You can tell it’s a plane, but it’s too far away to read the name of the airline.

What isn’t too far away is the extra emotion attached to this year’s Western-Laurier game. It will only add to the atmosphere on Oct. 24.