FINALLY, POWERFUL STAMPS CAN TAKE RIDERS SERIOUSLY
The Saskatchewan Roughriders challenging the Calgary Stampeders? Mere weeks ago, there was a greater likelihood of Brad Wall ordering a Papa Burger.
But now the Roughriders and Stampeders are the CFL’s hottest teams.
Saskatchewan sports a 6-5 record after winning four of its past five games. Calgary, meanwhile, is Calgary.
The teams collide Sunday at 2 p.m. at Mosaic Stadium. And, at long last, there is some intrigue.
This grizzled gargoyle of the media is still attempting to wrap his brain cell(s) around the notion of a meaningful game between Saskatchewan and Calgary.
The last such contest took place on Nov. 17, 2013, when the 11-7 Roughriders upset the 14-4 Stampeders in the West final.
Saskatchewan won 35-13, one week before celebrating a landmark Grey Cup victory on home turf, and there was elation in Rider Nation.
Within the next year, however, the Roughriders had become less competitive than gas prices.
The Rider slide carried into the early stages of this season, which included a 27-10 loss in Calgary on July 22.
That was Saskatchewan’s seventh successive loss to Calgary, which has outscored the Roughriders 228- 136 over that span. The Roughriders’ point totals in the last four meetings with Calgary are 19, 15, 10 and 10.
The July 22 game was another day at the office for the perennially powerful Stampeders.
It looked like another sign of a sorry season ahead for the Roughriders, whose record fell to 1-3 after they displayed an aversion to protecting quarterback Kevin Glenn.
Since then, however, Saskatchewan is 5-2. Calgary is once again a powerhouse, as evidenced by its 10-1-1 slate.
“Regardless of who they play against, Calgary is a good football team,” says Roughriders head coach, general manager and vicepresident of football operations Chris Jones. “They’ve only lost a few games for a reason over the last couple of years.
“They come in and consistently play good football, and we’re a good football team, too.”
That label didn’t apply after the July 22 loss in Calgary.
At that point, the Roughriders’ football-operations supremo was being blamed for The Trip To Spain — the rare movie with a comparable admission charge and cost of production — and the critics were baring their teeth and their souls.
Jones was brought to Saskatchewan late in 2015 with the mandate to orchestrate the Roughriders’ return to respectability. The Green and White was coming off a 3-15 season at the time, whereas Jones had just coached the Edmonton Eskimos to a Grey Cup victory.
In so doing, Jones and the Eskimos cleared the considerable West Division hurdle that is the Stampeders.
Now, as a black-clad Roughrider, Jones is striving to build another team that’s capable of dethroning Calgary, which perennially sets the bar.
Calgary boasts a carnivorous defence, the league’s reigning most outstanding player (QB Bo Levi Mitchell) and a phenomenal kick returner named Roy Finch. On special teams, football is often a game of Finch’s when the Stampeders are playing.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Calgary run the table en route to what seems to be an inevitable Grey Cup victory.
It would be surprising, though, if the Roughriders didn’t put up a fight on Sunday.
You can see Jones’ master plan taking shape. The talent level is vastly improved on both sides of the ball. Saskatchewan suddenly has the ability to make gamealtering plays on offence and defence.
However, the Roughriders haven’t yet demonstrated that capability against the toughest opponent of all.
Sunday’s game will provide the best indication to date of how far the Roughriders have progressed.
“We’ve been in a lot of tough battles,” Glenn says. “This is a tough team that’s coming in here, that we’re going to play.
“They’ve been winning a lot of games and they’ve been winning in all different types of fashion. I don’t think I’ve watched a game of theirs where it was the exact same win every time. They’ve come back. They’ve been down. They’ve rallied. They’ve done it on defence, offence and special teams.
“I think the fact that we’ve been able to do some of that, too, ... will help us when we face them this Sunday. I think it’s going be a pretty good game.”