By Mitchell Blair
For Riderville.com
Darian Durant is playing his best football of the season and so is his football team.
After a miserable first half of the season, Durant has responded since Ken Miller resumed his role as the team’s head coach, throwing for 462 yards and seven touchdowns while more importantly leading his team to its first two game win streak of the season. Durant admits that Miller’s return to the sideline has coincided with his improved play.
“His trust in me and allowing me to have the ability to run our offence has been big.” Durant said this week. “When you are calling your own plays, you are put in a position where you know you can’t fail. He has allowed me to get into a comfort zone where I know what I want to run and when I want to run it. That comfort zone has made me more confident and its something I didn’t have earlier this year.”
Durant, who has now thrown for just over 25-hundred yards and 17 touchdowns this year, doesn’t want to talk about the past and how his play may or may not have contributed to the team’s first half struggles, but he says the relationship he has with Miller has allowed him to take some pressure off his shoulders.
“Coach comes into the room every day and says if you have something that you think you can incorporate into the game-plan then let us know so we can see if we like it,” Durant said. “Whenever you see that a coach is willing to listen to you and you can give your input as a player, it’s a great feeling. He has given me a lot of trust to lead this team by allowing me to call plays and make the right decisions. Doing that has made me more comfortable and I think that has translated into a better performance over the past couple of weeks.”
One of Durant’s main weapons has noticed a difference over the past couple of weeks.
“He’s a lot more comfortable and a lot more relaxed, “said 4th year receiver Weston Dressler. “A lot of things change when you are winning games, but he has been more comfortable since being allowed to run his own plays and decide when and where we can run the plays that we know we can be successful at.”
Dressler also admits that it may have taken Durant a few weeks to get used to the fact that he didn’t have the talent to work with that he has been blessed with since assuming the starting quarterback duties in 2008.
“He has more confidence and more trust when he comes into the huddle now than he may have had at the start of the season.” Dressler stated. “If we lost anything early on, that may have been it. It’s easy to get down and start asking questions as to why things aren’t going right. He’s definitely confident now though and with Andy (Fantuz) back, it makes things a lot better for everyone including myself and I think that has shown.”
Always humble, Coach Miller doesn’t want to accept any credit for Durant’s turnaround saying all the credit should go to the North Carolina grad.
“He has played with a lot of confidence over the past couple of weeks,” Miller commented. “He has played very well and he has made the most of his opportunity to call his own plays.”
Durant has been dubbed with the nickname “bounce-back” since arriving in Riderville. He has definitely shown that he is bouncing back after a subpar first half of the season and if he continues to play the way he has been, it’s a good bet that the second half surge that the team is on will continue.
The Riders will be looking to make it three wins in a row on Saturday afternoon when they welcome the Toronto Argonauts to Mosaic Stadium in a 2 o’clock start. The game will be on TSN with radio coverage being provided by 620 CKRM starting with the pre-game show at 11:30 AM.
