Mitchell Blair
One-third of the way through the CFL season and the Saskatchewan Roughriders may arguably be the top story, but for all the wrong reasons.
Injuries, talk of replacing the head coach, bad penalties at the wrong time, and a less than stellar effort on the defensive side of the football have resulted in the Green and White losing their first six games.
While those first six games have been extremely frustrated for everyone in the organization, no one is even coming close to throwing in the towel as the Riders look once again for that first “W” of the season at Rogers Centre in Toronto Saturday afternoon when they battle the Argonauts.
Defensive end John Chick can’t put his finger on what has gone wrong this year, but he feels as if the team may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I don’t know exactly what the problem is,” Chick declared.” I have seen an improvement and a focus this week in practice though and that excites me about where we’re headed. There is no secret answer about what we’ve got to do, it’s not about X’s and O’s, it is simply a matter of cutting out the mistakes. I still have 100 percent confidence in everybody in that locker-room. It is just a matter of getting it done.
Brett Smith will be back under center for the Riders as he gets his second start in place of the injured Kevin Glenn. After having just one practice to prepare for his first start against Edmonton, Smith is more confident with more time under his belt and some comforting words.
“Surprisingly, I’m very comfortable, “Smith said. “I feel a lot better having three full practices and the game even though things didn’t go our way. Getting that experience helped out a ton and I had coach (Jacques) Chapdelaine to treat the game like I do practice and not make the game bigger than what it is. Kevin (Glenn) also told me to keep the game simple and not make it more difficult than it is. Like I said, experience wise I feel more comfortable and more experienced so I’m ready to get out there again.”
While there has been a lot of negative, Head Coach Corey Chamblin continues to preach the positives and hope the work his team has been putting in finally pays off.
“I tell those guys its football and they have to have positive production on the field. “ Chamblin said. “We’ve had positive weeks and negative returns and we have had negative weeks and positive returns. I see some new energy in our lineup with changes that have been made and I’m hoping that energy is contagious and it transfers over to the game.”
Game time Saturday afternoon is 5 o’clock with television coverage provided by TSN. 620 CKRM will start the longest and most comprehensive game-day coverage in the CFL starting at 2 o’clock with Michael Ball and Roughrider gameday in a show which will be streamed on Riderville.com live starting at 2:30 followed by Rider Nation pre-game at 4 with Rod Pedersen followed by the play-by-play as Rod and Carm Carteri call every touchdown and every tackle.
GAME NOTES:
- Steven Miller, Devin Wilson and Mark LeGree will make their 2015 season debut. For Miller and Wilson, they come off the practice roster while LeGree comes off the injury list.
- This will be the first “home” game for the Argonauts. The only other time they have been the home team this year was in Week 1 against Edmonton when the game was played in Fort McMurray, Alberta.
- Weston Dressler is three catches away from 500 career receptions
- Rookie linebacker Jeff Knox Junior went into the weekend as the number two tackler in the CFL with 38—one back of BC’s Adam Bighill
