By Mitchell Blair
For Riderville.com
The Saskatchewan Roughriders are not only trying to find a way to get into the 2011 CFL playoffs, but they are also trying to find a way to get their offense going.
The first quarter has not been kind to the football club this season. They have had been outscored 91-28, while not getting a point in the first quarter in seven of the 12 games played so far. It’s a problem the football team is well aware of.
“It’s very frustrating, “quarterback Darian Durant admitted. “You want to start the game off by getting ahead and having the other team claw back instead of it being us. Its been plaguing us for the last year. We are trying to correct it. It’s not easy, but we just keep plugging. The bottom line is winning and while you do want to start well, you want to win. I’d rather win and start slow though than start well and lose.”
Chris Getzlaf echoes the thoughts of his quarterback.
“We know we’re struggling,” Getzlaf said. “If we knew the reason as to why we were having a problem in the first quarter, we would do something about it, but we can’t put our finger on it. We come out with a gameplan and we hope to execute and get some points right off the bat, but its not happening. We’ll just keep going out there and call the plays that we think are effective and hope to get some positive results.”
Perhaps one reason why the team is having a tough time moving the ball in the first quarter is a tendency to not get a lot of yards on first down thus shrinking the playbook on second and longs. Durant says it obviously hurts when you’re trying to get everything on one play.
“It makes things very difficult—especially in a league where you only have three downs. The goal is try and get half of the yards on first down to make second down easier, but for whatever reason we have been in 2nd and long a lot. However, when you look at the stats, we are first in the league at converting on 2nd and over 7 so we have to be doing something right on 2nd down.”
As for Head Coach Ken Miller, he says the first quarter is no different than the other three quarters. He acknowledges the problem, but he says it’s tough to find a solution.
“We treat the first quarter like any other one. We want to start fast and play well.” Miller said. “It is something we work on and if there was a magic formula, we certainly would have used it by now.”
The team will try to shake off its performance in a 37 point loss to B.C. last week as they head into Calgary to take on the Stampeders at MacMahon Stadium in Calgary. The Stamps go into the game also reeling after giving up 55 points in a loss to Hamilton at Touchdown Atlantic in Moncton last week so both teams will be looking for much better performances.
Game time Saturday is 2:00 PM. You can watch it on TSN with 620 CKRM providing radio coverage throughout Saskatchewan. Rod Pedersen and Carm Carteri will have all the action starting with the pre-game show at 1:00 PM.
