Mitchell Blair
Kent Austin returns to Mosaic Stadium for the first time since walking out on the football club having resigned after his Grey Cup season of 2007 to take on the offensive co-ordinators job at Ole Miss. He will look to lead his football club to a victory over the unbeaten Saskatchewan Roughriders on Sunday night. Despite the fact the Riders are the better team at 3-0 and are at home, Riders head coach Corey Chamblin, who hopes to do what Austin did in 2007, says all the pressure is on the man who will be in charge of the visitors’ sideline.
“Kent Austin should be the one feeling the pressure, because he has to show he’s the same Kent Austin,” Chamblin said with a grin when discussing the Ti-Cats head man. “There’s no pressure as far as I’m concerned. I know there are people here that are still attached to Kent because of his history here, but at the end of the day they are Saskatchewan Roughrider fans.”
The big question going into the week is the health of quarterback Darian Durant. It would appear as if Durant has sufficiently recovered from a foot injury suffered in Toronto and will be under center as he usually is, but neither Durant or Chamblin are willing to say that Durant will be the starter.
“Darian has shown enough to me to warrant the start, but I just want to sit down with him to see where he is and how he feels.” Chamblin stated. “He seems to be feeling OK, but I just want him to come into work tomorrow and make sure nothing acted up overnight. My mind isn’t 100 percent made up, but there are some things I need to see before I make that decision.”
Durant wouldn’t give away any signs that he will be the starter, but he does feel as if he’ll be out there.
“The foot isn’t 100 percent, but it feels good enough to go out there and make some plays if I have to.” Durant said. “It’s looking good though, but that’s all I can say. “
If Durant is the starter, he will have a new weapon to throw the football too as Geroy Simon is ready to make his regular season debut in a Rider uniform. After suffering a leg injury in the pre-season, Simon missed the first three weeks of the season, but he has been given a clean bill of health and he is just waiting for the opportunity to do what he can do.
“I’m excited to finally get out there and represent this great organization, “Simon said. “It’s been a long time as I’ve been anxious for this since the trade was made to play in a meaningful game. I can’t wait to get going.”
There hasn’t been a lot to complain about over the first three weeks of the season as all three phases of the team are playing very well, but linebacker Rey Williams knows the team can be better and he says they want to do one thing in particular on Sunday.
“We’re giving up too many points in the fourth quarter whether we are up or not, “Williams explained. “We just have to have the attitude to play all four quarters. If you are going to have a championship defense, and we have the guys in that room to do so, we have to play all four quarters and not just two or three or three and a half.”
Sunday’s game will get underway at 5 pm with TV coverage being provided by TSN. 620 CKRM will start its game-day coverage at 2:30 with “Roughrider GameDay” followed by “Rider Nation pregame” at 4:00 and then the play-by-play with Rod Pedersen and Carm Carteri.
GAME NOTES
- With a win, the Riders would be 4-0 for only the fourth time in their history. The other years were 1969, 1970 and 2008
- The Riders lead the CFL in time of possession with a mark of 33:12
- Kory Sheets has had the best three game start in CFL history at 442 yards. He needs 99 yards to have the best four game start.
- This is the first of back-to-back games against Hamilton. The Riders only other back-to-back series this year is the annual September back-to-backs against Winnipeg
