Chris Jones was calling for some soul-searching Saturday night.
After watching his CFL team drop a 30-25 decision to the Ottawa Redblacks at Mosaic Stadium, the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ head coach and general manager was asked if the outcome was a wakeup call.
“I knew (the Redblacks) were a good team going in,” Jones said. “That’s what we talked to the team about: ‘Go home tonight and look and see if you were mentally and physically prepared to play this football game.’
“When you have as many negative things that happened on two phases, then it’s tough to say that we were all there tonight.”
The Roughriders were riding high entering the game, having won four straight games. The Redblacks, meanwhile, had lost two in a row.
But Ottawa put up 481 yards of net offence to Saskatchewan’s 240 and controlled the ball for 32 minutes 20 seconds to pop the Roughriders’ balloon.
“It’s not simply on the offence,” Jones said. “You must not have been watching our defence play tonight. (Ottawa had) 480 yards of offence. When you cut it to a two- or three-point game and you can’t keep people off the scoreboard in the fourth quarter, that’s strictly on the defence.”
Quarterback Zach Collaros had a different take. He completed 10 of 27 pass attempts for 162 yards, his receivers dropped numerous passes and the offence managed just 12 first downs.
“When you don’t execute on offence, it’s frustrating,” said Collaros, who three times during his session with the media said the offence’s woes were on him. “When you leave your defence out there hanging and the special-teams guys, you just feel like you let the team down — and that’s frustrating.”
Safety Mike Edem wasn’t going to let Collaros take the blame, suggesting the Roughriders are (and will continue to be) a team.
“We’ve had games where we (as a defence) have played bad and they (as an offence) have carried us and vice versa, so we can’t sit here and point fingers,” Edem said. “We win together as a team and we lose together as a team.
“This is a family and family picks each other up when things get rough.”
The Roughriders dropped to 7-5-0 with the loss and technically fell into third place in the West Division. The Edmonton Eskimos also have a 7-5-0 record, but they currently sit in second because they won the only meeting of the season so far with Saskatchewan.
Both the Roughriders and Eskimos are six points back of the first-place Calgary Stampeders, who improved to 10-2-0 with a 43-28 victory over the host Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Saturday.
The Roughriders’ next game is Sept. 22 against the host Toronto Argonauts.
On Saturday, the smoke from the pre-game pyrotechnics had barely cleared when Marcus Thigpen provided some fireworks of his own. The Roughriders’ speedster took the game’s opening kickoff and raced 97 yards for a touchdown just 13 seconds into the game.
It was the Roughriders’ first kickoff return for a touchdown since Corey Holmes went 81 yards with the opening kickoff against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on June 25, 2005.
Ironically, Jones suggested plays like Thigpen’s return can be “the kiss of death” for a team.
“A big play offensively or a kick return, sometimes it can be one of the worst things that can happen,” Jones said. “(The players) think it’s going to be easy — and it’s never easy.”
William Powell got the Redblacks on the board at 6:21 of the first quarter, scoring on a 19-yard run. A two-point convert attempt failed.
Brett Lauther’s 21-yard field goal stretched the Roughriders’ lead to 10-6 at 9:18 of the first quarter, but the Redblacks went ahead just three plays into the second quarter. Trevor Harris launched a 44-yard touchdown pass to R.J. Harris and Powell added the two-point convert to put Ottawa ahead 14-10.
The Redblacks made it 20-10 at 13:15 of the second quarter, when Harris found Diontae Spencer for a four-yard TD to cap off a 10-play, 109-yard drive. Ottawa took possession at its one-yard line when Jonathan Rose intercepted a Collaros pass.
The two-point convert attempt after Spencer’s major failed and the Redblacks took their 10-point lead into halftime.
The Roughriders needed just 1:46 to score a touchdown in the third quarter, as Kyran Moore returned a Richie Leone punt 89 yards for a major.
It was Moore’s second punt-return TD of the season — he had a 65-yarder against Winnipeg in the Labour Day Classic — and the Roughriders’ 12th return TD of the season (six interceptions, three punts, two fumbles and one kickoff).
Lauther missed the convert, so Saskatchewan trailed 20-16.
The last time the Roughriders returned both a punt and a kickoff for a touchdown in one game was Aug. 17, 2003, when Kevin Nickerson (96-yard kickoff return) and Holmes (87-yard punt return) turned the trick in a 51-41 victory over the Ottawa Renegades.
The last time it happened in the CFL was Sept. 18, 2015, when the B.C. Lions’ Chris Rainey returned a punt 103 yards and a kickoff 103 yards for TDs in a 35-23 loss to Calgary.
After conceding a safety at 12:04 of the third quarter, the Redblacks scored the next 10 points on a 41-yard field goal by Lewis Ward, a 69-yard touchdown run by Powell and a Ward convert to take a 30-18 lead.
Saskatchewan got a 34-yard TD pass from Collaros to Naaman Roosevelt and Lauther’s convert at 12:18 of the fourth to cut the deficit to five points, but couldn’t complete the comeback.
Tre Mason rushed 14 times for 68 yards and Roosevelt had three catches for 47 yards for Saskatchewan. Powell (18 carries for 148 yards) and Spencer (eight receptions for 110 yards) had big games for the Redblacks.
“Hats off to them; they did a good job,” Collaros said of the visitors. “We didn’t play well enough to win.”
