Courtesy Vancouver Sun:

It didn’t take long for an obscure running back named Rod (He Hate Me) Smart to see the advantage that fractured syntax could have on his football career.

His now-famous “He Hate Me” nickname that was stitched on the back of his jersey made Smart an instant sensation in the deservedly defunct XFL and later as a Super Bowl curiosity and special-teams player with the Carolina Panthers.

Hatred, anger — Smart chose to embrace them as a motivational tool, much as Lions halfback Korey Banks is doing with an orange undershirt, and the words “Me at War” crudely written on it with an ink pen.

Who exactly Banks is angry with, he won’t say. And when Vancouver Sun photographer Bill Keay tried to take a shot of Banks’s declarative after practice Wednesday at BC Place, his reaction had more to do with embarrassment and trepidation than advertised hostility. Korey rolled up the undershirt and refused to pose for the camera.

“It ain’t nothin,’ man, it’s just my playoff shirt,” Banks explained. “Nothing big, nothing fancy.”

So, are you at war, Korey, and with whom? The Saskatchewan Roughriders, Sunday’s visitors to the dome for the West Division final, might be an educated guess.

In fact, Banks says, it’s nothing personal and, indeed, his attitude is deeply personal. He doesn’t want his feelings advertised because, after all, He Hate Me or Me At War, can also be their own trap. Take, for instance, a historical reference such as Fred “The Hammer” Williamson, the Kansas City Chiefs defensive back who announced his intentions to pound on the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl I, then later had to be transported from the field in a woozy condition.

“It’s the attitude I take into the playoffs,” Banks continued. “I don’t like nobody. But it’s a feeling I keep to myself. I don’t like to show this [T-shirt] to the outsiders.”

Banks, from Mississippi State, has been a two-time league all-star in his two full seasons in the CFL, with Ottawa in 2005 and the Lions last season. But that run could come to an end this year after a season in which he missed two games with a high ankle sprain, which affected both his performance and his stats. His interception total dipped to four, subpar for a ballhawk who had 17 interceptions, combined, in his two previous campaigns.

In a playoff tune-up Nov. 3 against the Calgary Stampeders, Banks looked lost at sea, unable to win the one-one-battles in coverage and grasping at air on tackles. On one play, he looked as if he’d been deked out of his cup by scrambling Stampeders quarterback Ben Sankey, although Banks admitted Wednesday he doesn’t wear one.

“Jerry Rice had a good day on Deion [Sanders] once. It happens,” Banks says. “One game doesn’t mean nothin.’ Check the track record. I’ll make adjustments, just like they made adjustments on me. They get paid, too.”

Playing opposite Ryan Phillips, the third-year player who had a breakout year with a league-leading 12 interceptions, Banks thinks of himself as the team’s “forgotten man.”

“In my books, if they ain’t talkin’ about you, they forgot about you. Nobody’s talking about me this year,” he says. “So that’s cool. Four picks for me, that’s mediocre. I look at it as a stepping stone for doing something better next year, and next year begins this month.”

His teammate’s protestations to the contrary, Phillips still regards Banks and Saskatchewan’s Eddie Davis as the CFL’s premier halfbacks, and key players in Sunday’s final. Davis will shoulder substantial shutdown responsibility on Geroy Simon, with Banks and Phillips attempting to contain D.J. Flick and Andy Fantuz of the Riders, who are playing without difference-making wideout Matt Dominguez. The latter, out with a knee injury, climbs the ladder as well as any receiver in the CFL and represents a mismatch for smaller defensive backs.

“We know if we try to out-do each other on a personal level, and make plays, that’s going to be better for the team,” Phillips says. “I’ve watched Korey, I’ve learned from him, I’ve been motivated by him. Saskatchewan still has a productive unit without Dominguez, and Korey and I have to stop them from being productive.”

And right now, Banks, an amped, hyperactive individual even in repose, finds himself a burst of carbonation ready to pop.

“I’m like a cat with my back against the wall,” he says. “I’ve got to fight my way out of the corner. That’s the only way I know how. I’m so one-dimensional right now I don’t know how to be two-dimensional.”