Mitchell Blair
Just two weeks into the 2013 CFL season and either the Saskatchewan Roughriders or Calgary Stampeders will find themselves sitting first in the West with a perfect 2-0 mark. The two squads will butt helmets in front of what will be the largest opening day crowd to ever see a football game at Mosaic Stadium in what is the team’s only Friday night home game of the season.
The contest is being billed as a battle of the two top running backs in the CFL with Calgary’s Jon Cornish going up against Rider 2nd year back Kory Sheets. The Purdue grad has made it no secret that he wants to be the best running back in the CFL and his biggest competition to having that title is Cornish who very arguably was the CFL’s best player in 2012.
Sheets knows he’s not on the field with Cornish, but he relishes the opportunity to try and match him yard-for-yard.
“Its going to be a fun night,” Sheets conceded. “I know they will be trying to stop me from doing what I want to and I know our defence doesn’t want to let Jon do his thing. I’m sure we’ll both have an opportunity to gain some yards. I have a good offensive line and I’m confident they can create some big holes for me and let me do my thing.”
When asked what the difference between Cornish and Sheets is, Head Coach Corey Chamblin joked that one plays for Calgary while the other plays for Saskatchewan, but when he got right down to it, he says they each bring a different style.
“They are both home-run backs, but they have a different way of getting those home-runs,” Chamblin said. “They are both very good at what they do and it will be up to our defensive guys to try and stop Jon and what is a very good offence.”
If Sheets is to have success, his offensive line will have to be on the top of their game as they were in Edmonton in the season opener. Guard Chris Best
“We ran the ball real well last week and that made us smile,” Best stated. “He put out a challenge out there that he wants to run for 2-thousand yards. He makes us look good all the time so we will do what we can to help him get there. If they keep calling running plays, we don’t mind that because o-linemen love run blocking ahead of pass blocking. If they keep calling up runs and Kory keeps gashing them because we are creating some holes, it will leave us with smiles on our faces.”
As good as the Rider defense played last week in Edmonton, they should be a little better this week as Tearrius George makes his season debut. The defensive lineman was forced to watch the season opening win because he was serving a one game suspension. With that suspension now over, George is more than ready to get on the field and start his season.
“Its time to start making some plays,” George said with a chuckle. “Sholo (Keith Shologan) already has two sacks and I can’t let him stay ahead of me. In all seriousness, we know that Calgary can move the football and that we can’t let the success of last week translate into this week because it’s a whole new week. We have a challenge in front of us, but we’re confident we can meet that challenge especially with 40-thousand fans making life difficult for them.”
Kickoff is 7 o’clock and as always it will be shown on TSN. 620 CKRM will begin their game-day coverage at 430 with “Roughrider Gameday” followed by the play-by-play with Rod Pedersen.
GAME NOTES:
- These two teams played four times last year with the margin of victory in all four being six points or less.
- Darian Durant’s best ever game yardage wise was against Calgary in September of 2010 when he threw for 500 yards
- Durant is three touchdown passes away from 100 career
- The Riders have two 2009 CFL award winners on their defensive line. John Chick was the defensive player of the year while Ricky Foley was named the top Canadian.
