Mitch Mustain looks at his new surroundings and says that, yes, it seems at least a little familiar.
"It is somewhat similar to when I went to SC," he says, that being the University of Southern California, where Mustain had a star-crossed stint as a quarterback in one of the most glamorous programs in American college sport, and this being the verdant campus of McMaster University, where the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are currently holding training camp.
Aside from the lack of nearby ocean beaches, and movie-star neighbourhoods, and Song Girls, well maybe he has a point. …
"I had to pick up a whole new deal and a whole new place," he explains. "I mean, I've picked it up a little quicker here than when I went to SC. It's not terribly complicated. But it is new, it is a different game, a different style, so I should get used to that. There are days when I feel pretty good about it, and days when it's frustrating."
And days when Mustain must scan that same Steeltown horizon and ask himself the David Byrne question: "Well, how did I get here?"
In the CFL, where the idiosyncratic bio is pretty much the norm, you hear that tune all the time.
Six years ago, Mustain was named the Gatorade, USA Today and Parade magazine national high-school football player of the year, after leading his hometown team to an undefeated season and an Arkansas state championship. That is as blue chip as it gets in the land where football is the true national pastime.
The only question, barring a catastrophic injury, was which major college program he would grace with his presence, and which NFL team would eventually select him high in the draft.
It started out well: Mustain opted to stay close to home at the University of Arkansas, and the team won all eight games he started as a true freshman. But that would turn out to be the peak of his collegiate career. He transferred to Southern California when his former high-school coach, who had become the Razorbacks offensive co-ordinator, moved elsewhere. But at USC, after sitting out a year, he never emerged as the starter, and acknowledges playing second fiddle didn't come naturally.
"I had a hard time adjusting to the new role," he says. "That was a real learning experience for me - how to maintain that drive and that leadership and still have the second spot. How to be that guy."
Entering his draft year in 2011 with precious little to show from his college career, Mustain was projected as at best a late-round, long-shot pick.
And then he didn't help himself when, in February, he was caught selling what were first identified as prescription narcotics to an undercover police officer. (It turned out the drugs were not a controlled substance, and instead of being charged with a felony, Mustain was placed in a diversion program.)
He was left undrafted, and though normally NFL free agency would have been an option, the ongoing player lockout made that a non-starter. So his agent made a call which the Tiger-Cats happily answered, and thus the late decision to travel to this strange league in a strange land.
"It's easy for a lot of people to look at Canada as a kind of minor-league thing," Mustain says. "But it is a big opportunity in itself. It's a real league with really good players in it and really good teams."
He acknowledges there have been moments during this journey that he was ready to pack it in and abandon what has clearly been his life's mission. "I've considered it. I'd have been foolish not to."
And though he talks about "getting some experience up here, getting some playing time, getting some film, and, hopefully, I can go back down [to the NFL]as a No. 2 guy where you're a little more secure," right now he is the No. 4 guy of four quarterbacks on the Ticats depth chart. If he sticks around this season, it will likely be on the practice roster, earning peanuts, and that to get where everyone expected him to be by now, he still has a very long way to go.
But there's no doubting his motivation, there's no missing that chip on his shoulder, which must grow heavier every time he reads one of those "Whatever Happened To Mitch Mustain?" stories.
Does he feel like he has something to prove to the folks back home, where once he was the star of stars?
"Certainly," Mustain says. "There's always that."