Not even 48 hours after the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ 2023 season concluded, Jeremy O’Day spoke to the media and, by extension, the people who have followed the CFL team so devotedly.
“I want to send a message to Rider Nation,” he said following Monday’s announcement that he had been rehired as the Vice-President of Football Operations and General Manager.
“It’s difficult when the season ends and you’re not in the playoffs and you haven’t reached the goals that you set out, so I just wanted to say to the fan base that we certainly appreciate the support that they show us.
“We know that we let you down this season and last season. We need to be better and we will be better.
“We just ask for the continued support — the same support that they’ve showed us for the longest time. We’ll work our butts off and make sure that we have a team on the field that (the fans) can be proud of.”
O’Day, who reached agreement a three-year contract extension after it was offered to him on Sunday, is proud of an association with the Green and White that dates back to Feb. 26, 1999, when he signed with the team as a free agent offensive lineman.
Soon after retiring as a player on Feb. 8, 2011, he moved into the Football Operations side of the organization — serving as the Assistant GM with the championship team of 2013.
He assumed his current role on Jan. 18, 2019 and soon appointed Craig Dickenson as Head Coach.
In Year 1 under Dickenson and O’Day, the Roughriders posted a 13-5 record and finished first in the West Division.
The team was 9-5 in Year 2 and once again reached the West final. However, back-to-back 6-12 seasons led to O’Day’s decision not to retain Dickenson, who was also on an expiring contract.
“He’s an honourable person and he worked his butt off,” O’Day said.
“I want to thank him for all of his hard work and dedication to the Roughriders and also just ask that everyone respects the type of person that he is, because he certainly showed it back.”
O’Day said an all-encompassing search for a Head Coach will begin immediately. It will be up to the new appointee to select his own coaching staff. All the current assistant coaches began the 2023 season on one-year contracts.
“I can’t give you a definite time of when we’ll have our Head Coach in place, because we’ll have to go through the process with requesting to talk to staff members with other teams,” O’Day said.
“We’ll also go through a thorough evaluation of all of our Football Operations department and the processes that we use with our football team. I think it’s important to do that after every year, just to make sure that we’re doing things the right way to allow our team to be successful on the field.”
The first step in the process was the endorsement of O’Day, which came just one day after the Roughriders’ regular-season finale.
“First and foremost, Jeremy O’Day is an outstanding General Manager in our league,” President-CEO Craig Reynolds said.
“I’ve had a lot of opportunity to talk with players in our league, players on our team, our coaches, and other personnel in the league, and the one thing that comes through over and over and over again was the amount of respect that Jeremy has — how they respect him as a leader and how they respect him as a General Manager.”
Reynolds also cited roster construction and excellence at the draft table as factors that contributed to his return.
The receiving corps, to cite one example, included two 1,000-yard producers in 2023, even though the Roughriders had to go three deep on the quarterbacking depth chart after injuries to Trevor Harris and Mason Fine.
Shawn Bane Jr., who is coming off a 93-catch, 1,104-yard breakout season, was signed by O’Day as a free agent in February.
Samuel Emilus, who posted a 1,000-yard season faster than any Canadian receiver in franchise history, was a first-round choice (seventh overall) in the 2022 CFL Draft.
Under O’Day, the Roughriders have also received key contributions from lower-round selections such as receiver Kian Schaffer-Baker (fourth round, 2020), linebacker A.J. Allen (fourth, 2020), offensive lineman Logan Bandy (fifth, 2021), safety Jayden Dalke (sixth, 2022) and running back Thomas Bertrand-Hudon (fourth, 2023).
O’Day also used the Global Draft as a vehicle to bring Australian-born Adam Korsak to the Roughriders in 2023. This past season, his average yards per punt (47.9) was the best in the league and the second-highest in Roughriders history.
One year earlier, O’Day had traded a late-round draft choice to the Montreal Alouettes for returner Mario Alford, who went on to be named the CFL’s top special teams player for 2022.
As a first-year GM, O’Day signed quarterback Cody Fajardo as a free agent. The move generated little fanfare at the time, but the discussion changed when Fajardo was named a CFL All-Star and the West’s Most Outstanding Player in 2019.
The Roughriders’ major free-agent move of 2023 was the signing of Harris. The team won three of its first four games with Harris behind centre before he suffered what turned out to be a season-ending knee injury on July 15 against the visiting Calgary Stampeders.
Reynolds pointed to the free-agent signings of Harris, Bane Jr., centre Peter Godber and offensive lineman Philip Blake as especially astute moves by O’Day, who works closely with the Assistant GMs, Kyle Carson and Paul Jones.
“They’ve just done a great job of player recruitment,” Reynolds said, “and I have the faith in (O’Day) that he’ll hire an outstanding Coach as well.”
Also on Monday, the Roughriders’ President-CEO reached out to the team’s faithful followers, echoing the earlier words of O’Day.
“I think the message first and foremost is we let our fans down this year, and I’m accountable for that,” he said. “I own that, and that weighs on me. It weighs on me heavily and it weighs on the organization.
“When you have that, you are deeply, deeply committed to making the improvements necessary to move forward in a very positive way and in a way fans are going to be proud of.
“We’re going to build a football team that they’re going to be proud of and we’re going to make decisions that keep them top of mind, always.”
