The Saskatchewan Roughriders hope they’ve learned their lesson.
On July 8, the Roughriders beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 37-20 in a CFL contest at Mosaic Stadium. Saskatchewan then went into its first bye week of the regular season, confident that the momentum generated by its first victory of the campaign would carry over to its next game.
On July 22, the Roughriders were run over by the Calgary Stampeders, who prevailed 27-10 at McMahon Stadium.
Now, Saskatchewan faces a similar situation.
On Aug. 13, the Roughriders manhandled the B.C. Lions 41-8 at Mosaic Stadium. That game preceded the final bye week of the season for Saskatchewan, which hopes the momentum created by the win over B.C. will continue into Friday’s date with the host Edmonton Eskimos.
“We have to remember that feeling of coming back from that bye week, going into Calgary and getting beat pretty bad,” Roughriders defensive back Ed Gainey said after Monday’s practice at Leibel Field.
“We’ve got to continue to work to get better, continue to grow together and cherish these times that we have right now. It’s a long season and if we continue to let things slip away, it’s going to be bad for us in the end.”
The 3-4-0 Roughriders currently hold down fifth place in the CFL’s West Division. The Eskimos are in first at 7-1-0, followed by the Stampeders (6-1-0), Winnipeg Blue Bombers (6-2-0) and Lions (5-4-0).
The Roughriders were 1-2-0 after beating Hamilton and were oozing confidence as they headed to Calgary. But the Stampeders got the jump on Saskatchewan — Calgary led 17-0 at halftime — and didn’t let up.
So, head coach-GM Chris Jones was asked Monday, how do the Roughriders avoid a similar fate in Edmonton?
“We’ve got to do a great job of getting out of the hole,” he replied. “I hope today is no indication because we didn’t practise very fast today, so we’ll discuss that tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll come back Day 2 and be more ready to go.”
The Roughriders are practising at Leibel Field this week while Mosaic Stadium prepares to play host to a Guns N’ Roses concert Sunday. Jones admitted the team’s temporary move to the home of Regina Minor Football could have resulted in Monday’s performance.
“Normally when you do anything different and you get them out of their routine, they tend to not play quite as fast,” Jones said. “I’m hoping that that’s what it is because we’re going to be over there all week.
“I can tell you this: Edmonton lost their first game the other night (33-26 to Winnipeg on Thursday), so they’re going to be not in a good frame of mind to play us, so I hope that we’re ready to respond.”
The Roughriders responded well in their previous game.
Coming off a 30-15 loss to the host Lions on Aug. 5, Saskatchewan dominated the rematch. It held the ball for more than 32 minutes, put up 404 yards of net offence, recorded four sacks and 14 quarterback pressures, and registered seven takeaways. Gainey alone had four interceptions and a fumble recovery.
Several positive things happened in that game on which the Roughriders want to build — but several positive things happened against Hamilton, too.
“I can’t really speak for everybody, but I think we just got a little lackadaisical (preparing for Calgary), just going through the motions,” Gainey said. “You can’t really do that at this level. You’ve got to come in and you’ve got to be ready to work every day.”
For quarterback Kevin Glenn, the emphasis this week has to be on addressing “all the fine little detail things” while remembering the fallout from the first bye.
“(It’s about) making sure that we address it like, ‘This is what happened last time,’ so we don’t forget about it and we know about it and we go into this game with a different kind of mindset …,” Glenn said. “That’s the most that you can do. You make everybody aware of it and move on from there.”
Since the Ottawa Redblacks entered the league in 2014, each team has had two byes in the regular season. Saskatchewan is 3-4-0 in its first game back after a bye (including the loss in Calgary) since then — but it has won only one of its past five games following a week off.
Byes obviously help players recover from the bumps and bruises that they suffer every week. The mental breaks also are valuable during a regular season that comprises 18 games per team.
The Roughriders are eager to prove that they learned from their first experience with a bye this season.
“I’m not sure you can always draw direct correlations from things like that, but what I would say is we’re all aware that we need to focus on having a good practice week because we know we’re going into a tough place to play and we know we’re going up against a good team,” said guard Peter Dyakowski.
“But we know how good we are and we’ve got a lot more evidence now. We’ve seen what we can do when we execute. We’ve seen the amount of talent we have on this team, top to bottom. Last game, we played a good game in every phase. Seeing that and having more proof of what we can do boosts our confidence level.”
