RIDERS RUN ROUGHSHOD OVER LIONS
There was an evisceration in Rider Nation.
On Sunday, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were not the eviscerated party. Instead, they robustly rebounded from a lopsided loss by defeating the B.C. Lions 41-8 in a rare Sunday night game at Mosaic Stadium.
Eight days earlier, the Lions had defeated the Roughriders 30-15. The visitors had trailed 30-0 before scoring two garbagetime touchdowns.
On Sunday, there was so much garbage time that Glad should have been an official sponsor.
Saskatchewan led 29-0 at halftime en route to improving its record to 3-4 and registering its first victory against a West Division foe this season.
At long last, the Roughriders’ defence was what one would expect from a unit choreographed by Chris Jones.
Saskatchewan exerted consistent pressure on Lions quarterbacks Jonathon Jennings and Travis Lulay and actually registered some interceptions (five) for a change.
This much was hardly novel: Kevin Glenn treated a sellout crowd of 33,350 to a brilliant performance.
Glenn threw three touchdown passes, giving him 14 for the season — tying Darian Durant’s team-high total for all of last season. (Whatever happened to the “start Brandon Bridge!” lobby, anyway?)
Thirteen of Glenn’s TD passes have been at home, where the Roughriders are 3-1.
On the road, however, Saskatchewan is 0-3 and has managed a meagre 41 points — with 15 of them, as referenced earlier, being utterly meaningless.
There is considerably more significance to what the Roughriders accomplished Sunday. At a time when the critics were howling and the buzzards were circling (or whatever buzzards do), the Roughriders responded with a resounding win and created a buzz going into a bye week.
Along the way, there were some numerical nuggets, which we present for your reading pleasure ... ROUGE RIDERS: Saskatchewan assumed a first-quarter lead for the first time since July 8, thanks to a single on Tyler Crapigna’s errant field-goal attempt 6:52 into Sunday’s game. Saskatchewan led the Hamilton Tiger-Cats — really, who doesn’t lead the Hamilton Tiger-Cats? — 9-7 after 15 minutes en route to winning 37-20. A GRANT OL’ TIME: 9:24 into Sunday’s game, Glenn found Bakari Grant for a 35-yard major. That ended the Roughriders’ firstquarter TD drought at 54 minutes 53 seconds. Their previous first-quarter major was on (you guessed it) July 8, when Glenn ran six yards for a major. FOUR-THOUGHT: Grant’s TD catch was his fourth of the season, tying him with Duron Carter for the team lead at that point — in the Roughriders’ seventh game of the season. Grant and Carter have matched the Roughriders’ team-leading total for all of last season. Rob Bagg and John Chiles both caught four TD passes in 2016. In Sunday’s third quarter, Carter registered his fifth scoring grab of 2017. (Hold on. Wasn’t Carter supposed to be a disruptive force? Only to rival defences, it seems. Onwards ...) ED-CELLENT: Ed Gainey had the Roughriders’ first four interceptions by a defensive back this season. Gainey returned his second first-quarter pick 49 yards for a touchdown. He registered Saskatchewan’s first pick-six since Sept. 27, 2015, when Macho Harris took his third interception of the game all the way during a 33-21 victory over the visiting Montreal Alouettes. During Sunday’s second quarter, Gainey snared his third interception of the game. At that point, Gainey and receiver Naaman Roosevelt had both caught three passes to lead Saskatchewan. Gainey struck again late in the fourth quarter. AND GET THIS: Gainey, who made his CFL debut in 2012, had a career-high three interceptions with the Roughriders last season. He exceeded that total by one on Sunday, when he set a franchise single-game record. STELLAR START: Saskatchewan led 15-0 after Sunday’s first quarter. That was the Roughriders’ highest first-quarter output since Aug. 2, 2014, when Saskatchewan led the host Ottawa Redblacks 24-0 after 15 minutes. The Riders ended up winning 38-14. THE BETTER HALF: Saskatchewan led 29-0 at halftime. Until Sunday, the Roughriders had not scored 29 or more points in a half since the aforementioned 2014 game against Ottawa, which trailed 32-7 at intermission. More impressively, Saskatchewan enjoyed a halftime lead of 29-plus points for the first time since Aug. 26, 2006, when the Roughriders were ahead 34-3 after 30 minutes in Hamilton. The Roughriders ended up winning 51-8 on the strength of three TD passes by Rocky Butler.
Also of note from 8/26/06: Late in that blowout, a 24-yearold quarterback made his CFL on-field debut, completing his only pass attempt (a 14-yard toss to Shermar Bracey) and rushing once for a 20-yard advance.
His name: Darian Durant.