Going way back to find back-to-back wins
So there I was, somnolently staring at a screen full of garble and goo, wondering if my column was going to kill the tree a second time.
I was about to scream at a decibel level that had not been heard since the Republican National Convention. Somehow stifling the urge to unravel, I turned to a reliable diversion — Twitter — and was suitably, surprisingly inspired.
Fake Gainer (@fakeGAINER) had an inquiry: “When was the last time the Riders won two consecutive regular-season games in Montreal?”
Relying on my memory, the immediate inclination was to answer: “1975.” Two years before the real Gainer was born, Ron Lancaster threw an 85-yard touchdown pass to Rhett Dawson with 1:09 remaining in the fourth quarter to give the Saskatchewan Roughriders a 24-20 CFL victory over the Montreal Alouettes at the old Autostade.
Saskatchewan had also won in its previous visit to Montreal, in 1973. (That was eight years before every team started visiting every stadium every year.)
As it turned out, my initial answer was incorrect. Upon further review, it turned out that the Roughriders had prevailed in Montreal in 1983 (21-14) and 1984 (30-24) despite winning a combined 11 games over those two non-playoff seasons — part of the gory years that the Regina Leader-Post’s legendary Bob Hughes memorably dubbed “The Reign of Error.”
As in 1984, the Roughriders won 30-24 in Montreal in the 2015 regular-season finale. Brett Smith came off the bench and fired three touchdown passes, including the overtime winner to Weston Dressler, to help Saskatchewan finish the season with a 3-15 record.
The victory was so impactful that only 11 of the 44 players who dressed for Saskatchewan in that game are still with the team.
Chris Jones was named the Roughriders’ head coach, general manager and vice-president of football operations a month after the season-ending win at Percival Molson Stadium.
On Friday, the Jones-coached Roughriders are to meet the Alouettes in a collision of 1-3 teams.
It is hardly a marquee matchup, but a second successive Saskatchewan victory in Montreal would be notable. So would a meaningful road victory.
The most recent Saskatchewan-Montreal game did not have any bearing on the standings. Both teams were adhering to CFL scheduling obligations by playing the game.
The overtime conquest did snap a 13-game road losing streak for Saskatchewan, which had not previously won an away game since Sept. 7, 2014.
That afternoon, the visiting Roughriders defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers by the nowthematic score of 30-24.
It was an expensive victory, though, as Roughriders quarterback Darian Durant suffered a season-ending elbow injury during the third quarter.
Durant returned for the 2015 regular-season opener, only to suffer a ruptured left Achilles tendon shortly before halftime.
He made another comeback to begin the 2016 campaign and played impressively until the second quarter of the Roughriders’ third game — a July 16 meeting with the visiting B.C. Lions. Saskatchewan was ahead 10-7 when its star quarterback left the game with a sprained left ankle. With Mitchell Gale at the controls of the offence, the Green and White fattened its lead to 23-10 by halftime. The Roughriders then fell apart, much like I did at the outset of the writing process, and were outscored 30-4 in the second half. The Lions won, 40-27.
Six days later, the Roughriders rebounded with a 30-29 home victory over the Ottawa Redblacks on Taylor Field. Gale, making his first CFL start, threw for 354 yards — 89 of which came on a long-distance touchdown connection with Naaman Roosevelt.
Gale is to start again on Friday. With that in mind, Fake Gainer posed another question — the essence being: Who was the last Riders quarterback other than Durant to win back-to-back starts? Dutifully, I looked it up. The answer is ... (wait for it) ... Michael Bishop.
Bishop was the triumphant pivot in each of his first two games as a Roughrider, piloting his new team to victories over Winnipeg on Aug. 31 (19-6) and Sept. 7 (34-31) of 2008.
It is, of course, my pleasure to provide the information — having received the inspiration from my furry, fictional friend, Fake Gainer.
And so concludes my gopher tale.