Heads were shaking — and then an entire stadium shook.
Midway through the fourth quarter of the 101st Grey Cup game, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were facing a second-and-19 predicament against a Hamilton Tiger-Cats team that was on a 10-point run.
The Green and White’s seemingly insurmountable 31-6 halftime lead had been pared to 31-16, so there was more than a trace of tension at historic Mosaic Stadium on Nov. 24, 2013.
Some angst was also evident in the huddle when, with 19 yards required to move the chains, Offensive Co-ordinator George Cortez ordered up a running play in what seemed to be an obvious passing situation.
“When the play was called, everyone was like, ‘Are you serious?’ ” recalls star tailback Kory Sheets, who is returning to Saskatchewan in October for Legends Night — a 10th-anniversary celebration of the Roughriders’ home-field Grey Cup win.
“It was crazy. I’ll never forget it.”
Nor will he forget the response when quarterback Darian Durant relayed the call from Cortez.
“We’re in the huddle and we’re all talking like, ‘Dial up one of those big plays,’ ” Sheets says.
“Doubles comes in and basically says that it’s a draw. All 11 of us literally looked at him like, ‘Are you serious?!’ He looked at me and said, ‘Man, make it work. Break!’
“We broke the huddle and we were upset at the play call — and it was the perfect play call. (Cortez) knew what he was doing.”
Sheets gained the required 19 yards, adding two more for good measure. The Roughriders ended up with a first down on their 40-yard line and, just as importantly, were able to exhaust more precious time from the clock.
“I feel like that was the defining moment in the game,” Sheets, 38, says from his home in Tampa, Fla. “It was like, ‘There’s nothing that y’all can put in front of us that we’re not going to overcome.’ ”
That possession was capped when Sheets scored his second TD of the day, on a five-yard run. Chris Milo added the convert to give Saskatchewan a 22-point advantage.
For the final 5:22, everyone could breathe easier.
The Roughriders were destined to win the fourth championship in franchise history — on home turf!
Afterward, Sheets received the most coveted of post-Grey Cup prizes. He was honoured as the game’s most valuable player after rushing for a Grey Cup-record 197 yards and scoring two TDs.
“It was one of the greatest games I’ve ever played, to be honest with you,” he says.
“Honestly, I only have one regret. I wish I would have gone back in and got one more carry to get 200 yards.
“It was my choice not to go back in, so I’m not too mad. It wasn’t like they stopped me. It was a personal choice not to go back in.”
Even then, there was a storybook ending.
Regina-born Neal Hughes, in the game for Sheets, carried the ball three times for 32 yards in the final two minutes.
On the very same field where Hughes had played high school, junior and university football — and where he had once attended Roughriders games as a season-ticket holder — he was able to apply a perfect post-script to the proceedings.
Ten years later, the celebration is about to resume.
The 2013 Roughriders, en masse, are to be enshrined in the SaskTel Plaza of Honour in a month’s time.
The team will be formally inducted at halftime of a home game against, fittingly enough, Hamilton.
Members of the 2013 Roughriders has been invited back to Regina for the festivities.
The list of confirmed attendees includes Hughes, Chris Getzlaf, Tyron Brackenridge, Tristan Jackson and the Grey Cup MVP himself, Kory Sheets, with more names and details to be announced in the lead-up to Oct. 7.
“I’m excited to come back,” he says. “It’s going to be surreal, because it has been 10 years already.
“A lot of guys are going to look different. Some of them are going to have beards who didn’t have beards. Some guys are going to have less hair. Some guys are going to have bellies who didn’t have bellies.”
And everyone will be able to chew the fat.
“I haven’t seen a lot of the guys or talked to a lot of them in a few years,” Sheets says. “It’s going to be fun to get back to see everybody.”
Albeit at a facility — $278-million Mosaic Stadium — that was barely past the blueprint stages when the Roughriders last won a Grey Cup.
“I was just talking to my lady the other day and she said, ‘That team is legendary, just because you can never do that again,’ ” Sheets said, breaking into a chuckle. “Once you tore down that old stadium, that was it.”
That was it, as it turned out, for Sheets’s CFL career.
After amassing 1,598 rushing yards — the second-highest total in franchise history — in 15¼ games for the 2013 Roughriders, Sheets signed with the NFL’s Oakland Raiders as a free agent.
Since retiring from football, Sheets has met the love of his life and celebrated the births of two children, ages one and two. And now he is poised to make his second visit to Regina as a member of the Roughriders alumni.
“When I went back a couple of years ago, I wanted them to sign me to an eight-day contract,” Sheets says. “I need a week and an off day.”
