October 14, 2017

The Roughriders are confident they’ll bounce back

The Saskatchewan Roughriders take on the Ottawa RedBlacks in CFL action on June 10th, 2017 at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, SK. Liam Richards/Electric Umbrella

In Bakari Grant’s mind, there’s only one way for the Saskatchewan Roughriders to recover from a stunning loss.

“Go back to work,” the veteran receiver said after Friday’s 33-32 CFL defeat at the hands of the Ottawa Redblacks at Mosaic Stadium. “That’s all it is.

“Win or lose, it’s the same formula. If you win, you go back to work in a better mood. If you lose, you go back in a little bit worse mood.”

The Roughriders won’t be in a good mood after Friday’s effort. Saskatchewan took a 32-20 lead on Tyler Crapigna’s 14-yard field goal with 5:49 left to play, but couldn’t hold off the Redblacks.

First, Ottawa drove 68 yards in nine plays and got a Greg Ellingson touchdown catch with 2:31 left in the fourth quarter.

That march included an eight-yard pass from Brett Maher to Jake Harty on a fake punt and a roughing-the-passer penalty on Roughriders defensive end A.C. Leonard that wiped out a Henoc Muamba interception.

Then, after Saskatchewan failed to move the ball on its next possession, the Redblacks covered 87 yards in 10 plays — the last of which was Ryan Lindley’s game-winning, one-yard touchdown run with two seconds left in regulation time.

That drive featured two successful third-down gambles (including a 27-yard pass from Trevor Harris to Diontae Spencer on third-and-10) and a pass-interference penalty in the end zone that gave Ottawa a first down at the Saskatchewan one-yard line.

After two straight games in which the Roughriders rallied from double-digit deficits to win, they got a taste of their own medicine.

“There’s a lot of parity in the league,” said Crapigna, whose squad posted come-from-behind victories over the Redblacks on Sept. 29 and the Toronto Argonauts on Oct. 7. “This could happen on any given night and, unfortunately, it happened to us this week. The past couple of weeks, we’ve been on the other end of it.

“Stuff happens. As a team, we’ve got a lot of character in this room and I think we’re going to bounce back just fine next week.”

Trouble is, “next week” is a game Friday in Calgary against the Stampeders. Calgary has won 10 straight against the Roughriders overall and is 10-0-1 in the teams’ past 11 meetings in the Alberta city.

“It’s good,” Grant said of facing the Stampeders in the first game back after a tough loss. “It gives us an opportunity to face one of the best in the league and show what we can do as a team.”

The Roughriders will have to do more than they did Friday.

They controlled the ball for more than 38 minutes, got 387 yards passing from Kevin Glenn and 231 yards receiving from Duron Carter, and held Redblacks tailback William Powell to 58 yards rushing two weeks after he gained 187 yards against them in Ottawa.

But Saskatchewan settled for six field goals from Crapigna, including one that came after the Roughriders had a first down at the Redblacks’ six-yard line.

Glenn also threw two interceptions — one in the Ottawa end zone and one that was returned 46 yards for a touchdown by Antoine Pruneau.

As well, the Roughriders’ defence took six of the team’s seven penalties on the night. Three of those infractions kept alive Ottawa drives that resulted in points, including Lindley’s decisive major after the aforementioned pass-interference call.

“Right now, it hurts,” Glenn said. “I know there’s a lot of stuff going through everybody’s mind. We’ve just got to stick together as a team. We can’t point the finger.

“We’ve got to try to pull some good out of this — and when I say ‘good,’ I mean learn from it to where we think back on this if we’re in this kind of situation again to try to overcome it.”

Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones likened Friday’s loss to the season-opening 17-16 defeat in Montreal on June 22. The Roughriders led that contest 16-14 midway through the fourth quarter, but couldn’t stop the Alouettes as they drove for Boris Bede’s go-ahead field goal.

Saskatchewan also had a 17-3 lead on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on July 1 before surrendering 24 straight points. The Roughriders rallied, but ended up losing 43-40 in overtime.

The loss Friday will join those defeats in Saskatchewan’s memory banks.

“This is what was happening to us earlier in the year, so we’ve just got to reiterate to the guys that we can’t let these slip away from us …,” Glenn said.

“Sometimes as the season goes, you tend to forget what happened early in the season because you’re so focused on what’s going on right now. We have to bring it back up, talk about it with the guys and move on. The biggest thing is to move on. We can’t dwell on this.”

According to Grant, they also can’t push the panic button.

After starting with two wins in their first six games, the Roughriders went on a 6-2-0 run before Friday’s loss. Grant doesn’t think Saskatchewan has to go back to the drawing board after one defeat, no matter how stunning.

“Every time you lose, people want to change something,” he said. “You don’t change anything. You go back to work, you do what you need to do and you make the plays that need to be made.

“Nothing needs to change. We just need to be more detail-oriented and go to work.”