DURANT DESERVES OUR THANKS
Former Riders quarterback was a winner and exemplary representative of the team
Darian Durant excelled, from an aerial standpoint, even before he became the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ starting quarterback.
The mind rewinds 10 years to an informal chat with a Saskatchewan Roughriders supporter who happened to sit next to Durant on a team flight — those being the days in which the
Green and White routinely flew commercial.
The fan raved about Durant’s congenial nature. It was the first of many plaudits I would hear him receive for the better part of the next decade.
At the time Durant so impressed the passenger in the aisle seat, Kerry Joseph was the Roughriders’ No. 1 quarterback. Marcus Crandell was next on the CFL team’s depth chart.
Then came Durant, who wore No. 14 back then. He might as well have been No. 14 on the depth chart, for all the playing time he received.
Durant dressed for the Roughriders when they won the 2007 Grey Cup game. It was unquestionably the highlight of a season in which he didn’t play a single down, exhibition games excepted.
The year before, as a rookie CFLer, Durant had rushed once (for a 20-yard gain) and completed his only pass attempt (a 14-yarder to Shermar Bracey). And then Durant sat, or stood, for the longest time.
That all changed in 2008. Although Joseph was traded to the Toronto Argonauts a few months after guiding Saskatchewan to its third Grey Cup victory, Durant was once again the No. 3 quarterback when the season began.
His status quickly changed in Week 2, however, when Crandell got hurt early in a road game against the B.C. Lions. Steven Jyles was ineffective in relief.
For the second half, then head coach Ken Miller decided to go with the untested Durant. The Roughriders won that game, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one after that ...
Alas, Durant’s 2008 season was interrupted by a rib injury. By the time he was eligible to return to active duty, the quarterback situation was a dumpster fire. Michael Bishop had been acquired. Jyles was still part of the equation. So was Durant, in whom little faith was demonstrated, despite his early-season brilliance.
With a prescient push from Miller, the Roughriders’ ruling class of the day soon discovered the error of its ways. A commitment was made to Durant, who was anointed the starter going into training camp in 2009.
Given that opportunity, he performed at a level that would eventually compel the Roughriders to affix a giant picture of their star quarterback — wearing his familiar No. 4 — to the west side facing of Taylor Field.
As a first year full-time starter in 2009, Durant quarterbacked the Roughriders to first place in the West Division — a feat that had last been accomplished in 1976, when Ron Lancaster was calling the signals.
The Roughriders returned to the Grey Cup in 2010, only to suffer a second successive heartbreaking loss to the Montreal Alouettes.
Again, Durant persevered, and was eventually rewarded in the grandest fashion.
On Nov. 24, 2013, Durant celebrated the first home-field Grey Cup victory in franchise history. He threw three touchdown passes, matching Lancaster’s total from the Roughriders’ first championship game victory, in 1966.
“It will always be my top moment as a Roughrider, for sure,” Durant said Thursday after the Alouettes arrived in Regina.
For Durant, nothing was quite the same after 2013. He was derailed by back-to-back seasonending injuries before enduring an uneasy coexistence with new head coach and general manager Chris Jones in 2016.
Shortly after that season, Durant was labelled “moderately successful” by Jones, who eventually dealt the Roughriders’ marquee player to the Alouettes — who visited new Mosaic Stadium on Friday.
Although Durant’s uniform has changed, he deserves thanks from everyone who inhabits Rider Nation.
Durant was unfailingly respectful of the fans, the media, and the franchise’s rich history. At all times, he was an exemplary representative of the team with which he became a star.
Considering the larger picture, Darian Durant will always belong to Saskatchewan.
And the fans will always remember what he did as a Roughrider, whether it was quarterbacking the team to a memorable victory — the 2013 West semifinal being a personal favourite — or simply making a new friend at 38,000 feet.
Durant was unfailingly respectful of the fans, the media, and the franchise’s rich history.