CALGARY — If the Calgary Stampeders are the measuring stick for CFL teams, the Saskatchewan Roughriders discovered Saturday that they have work to do to measure up.
A sluggish first half helped send the Roughriders to a 27-10 loss to the Stampeders at McMahon Stadium. It was Calgary’s ninth straight regular-season victory over the Roughriders and its 10th straight regular-season triumph over Saskatchewan in Calgary.
The Roughriders’ most-recent regular-season win at McMahon occurred Aug. 1, 2009.
“We weren’t good enough today,” said Saskatchewan tailback Cameron Marshall. “They came out and they put it on us in that first half. Hats off to them, they did a good job, but we’ve just got to be better across the board.
“We’ve got to be more efficient offensively. We can’t come out how we did and expect to be successful.”
The Roughriders (1-3-0) were outscored 17-0 in the game’s opening 30 minutes, but Calgary (3-1-1) dominated the statistics in the first half.
The Stampeders controlled the ball for 18 minutes 32 seconds, owned a 15-3 edge in first downs and had a 272-34 advantage in net offence. Tailback Jerome Messam rushed 17 times for 96 yards in the first half and the Calgary defence sacked Saskatchewan quarterback Kevin Glenn five times before the intermission.
“It’s tough when you can’t get into a rhythm as an offence and that’s kind of what went on in the first half,” said Glenn, who passed for just 55 yards before the break. “We did some uncharacteristic things on offence that we haven’t been doing in the past three games.
“The second half, we came out, got into a rhythm and started moving the ball, started getting some momentum, scored a couple of points. But with a team like that, you can’t come out slow. You can’t have the type of first half that we had and think that we’re going to win the game.”
Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones was more succinct, admitting: “We got beat by the better football team tonight.”
The Stampeders drew first blood on a 23-yard field goal by Rene Paredes at 5:06 of the first quarter. The 11-play, 68-yard scoring drive included three successful challenges by the head coaches.
First, Calgary’s Dave Dickenson got an illegal-contact penalty called against Saskatchewan linebacker Sam Williams on the game’s third play from scrimmage. Three plays later, Jones had a 31-yard completion to Marquay McDaniel overturned and ruled incomplete.
Immediately after that ruling was announced, Dickenson threw his challenge flag in hopes of getting Williams penalized for pass interference. The review deemed it was a penalty, giving Calgary a first down at the Roughriders’ 35. Five plays later, Paredes split the uprights.
After Saskatchewan went two-and-out on its first possession and punted, the Stampeders needed just one play to find the end zone as Bo Levi Mitchell found a wide-open McDaniel for a 44-yard TD. Paredes hit the convert and Calgary led 10-0 at 7:25.
The Stamps struck again at 11:37 of the second quarter, when Mitchell found Lemar Durant for a 19-yard touchdown. Paredes’ convert gave Calgary a 17-0 lead — the advantage it held at halftime.
The Roughriders accepted the second-half kickoff and drove 80 yards in eight plays. Marshall scored on a five-yard run, one play after Glenn hit Naaman Roosevelt for 23 yards — a completion that made Glenn one of just seven quarterbacks in CFL history with more than 50,000 passing yards in his career.
Tyler Crapigna’s convert made it 17-7 at 4:46 of the third quarter.
The Roughriders cut the deficit to seven points at 1:07 of the fourth quarter when Crapigna hit a 27-yard field goal. But Paredes connected from 47 yards out at 5:39 of the fourth to make it a 10-point game again.
The Stampeders salted away the victory at 11:58 of the fourth quarter when Messam scored on a one-yard plunge on a third-down gamble. Paredes added the convert to make it 27-10.
Messam finished with 28 carries for 135 yards. Mitchell was 16-for-28 passing for 253 yards, with Kamar Jorden (eight receptions) and McDaniel (two catches) both registering 88 receiving yards.
Glenn was 20-for-29 passing for 203 yards, snapping his streak of consecutive games with at least 30 completions at three. He’s one of only three quarterbacks in league history to attain that standard.
Marshall rushed nine times for 40 yards and caught five passes for 43 yards. Roosevelt led the Roughriders with six receptions and 57 yards.
Stampeders rush end Charleston Hughes had three of Calgary’s five sacks, outduelling former teammate/Roughriders offensive tackle Derek Dennis.
Saskatchewan was coming off a bye week and, before that, a 37-20 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on July 8. Whatever momentum the Roughriders generated from that game was lost in Calgary.
“It’s part of a season,” said middle linebacker Henoc Muamba. “The good teams are able to bounce back and learn and grow from a game, whether it’s a win or a loss.
“That’s going to be the point and focus of the next week coming up. We can’t just take the loss and keep our heads down but rather grow from it, learn from it and move forward.”
“Anytime you get handled like we got handled tonight, it’s not a positive thing,” added Jones, whose team is to face the visiting Toronto Argonauts on July 29. “We’ll take (Sunday) off, come back and watch the film as a group the following day and make preparations for our next football game.”
And where does Jones think his team is after Saturday’s loss?
“We’ve got a very good (Toronto) team coming up and it’ll be interesting to see exactly where we do stack up,” he replied. “The group in (the locker room), they’re very disappointed, but we do have high character, they do have great work habits and we’re going to keep working.”
