Mitchell Blair
Saskatchewan Roughriders President and CEO Craig Reynolds has had a difficult first five months on the job.
Nine games into his initial season, Reynolds is still waiting to see his football team win their first game and while he watched player after player go down with injury and the losses mount, he kept hoping Corey Chamblin could pull the team out of a tailspin which started almost a year ago. That hope ended after a disappointing 35-13 loss to Ottawa on Sunday.
On Monday, the team did what many were expecting, telling Chamblin his services were no longer needed and Brendan Taman getting the same message.
In announcing the promotion of assistant general manager Jeremy O’Day to general manager and special teams coach Bob Dyce to head coach, Reynolds says it was a move made after a considerable amount of thought.
“You consider all the options when you are in this situation, but there were a lot of concerns and at the end of the day I thought we needed a different direction and a different voice.” Reynolds told a packed news conference at Mosaic Stadium Tuesday morning. “The reality is we are in a results oriented business and we are 0-9 this season and 2-15 over the last 17 games and there is shared responsibility there. Quite honestly, we had belief Corey could turn this thing around, but after what happened Sunday, there was a realization we weren’t going to turn this around until a change was made so in the best interests of this franchise long-term to move in a different direction.”
In handing the general manager duties on an interim basis to O’Day, he gets a shot he admittedly thought would happen with another organization. While disappointed with what has happened, O’Day is determined to show the football club what he can do and hopefully convince the organization that he is the man to guide this team into 2016 and beyond.
“I have a great opportunity in front of me to show everyone I am ready,” O’Day said one day after his 41st birthday. “I hope my actions will speak louder than my words and that I’m prepared and I am ready to go. I think we have the talent in the room to win football games. I have a lot of faith in the guys in the locker-room and the coaching staff we have. We have to earn their respect, but they have to earn ours as well. I think we can win and we can start doing that on Sunday.”
It didn’t take long for O’Day to make his first personnel decision. Hours after the press conference announcing his hiring, quarterback Tino Sunseri was released. O’Day, who has been with the Riders since 1999 as a player, said he just didn’t fit in to what the team wanted to accomplish in that position.
For Bobby Dyce, the promotion gives the Winnipeg native his first chance to be a CFL head coach. It is something he is quite happy to embrace.
“As a Canadian, I’m humbled to be in the position that I am to be able to lead what I consider to be the pre-eminent franchise in this league,’ the 49-year-old Dyce said. “The last couple of years on special teams have really helped me prepare for this role. As a special teams coordinator, I don’t think there will be a lot of change for what I do because when you were in the position I was you have to have the knowledge of everything. When you watch games on TV, you will see the special teams coordinator standing beside the head coach because they have to be in constant communication with one another so I don’t think the leap will be as great as what you may think.”
Dyce also made it quite clear that after getting yanked for Sunseri on Sunday, Brett Smith will return as the team’s starting quarterback this Sunday against Winnipeg. He also made it clear Greg Quick will remain as the team’s defensive coordinator and that no staffing changes are planned.
While O’Day made it clear he would like to stay on as general manager after the season ends, Dyce just wants to concentrate on the second half of the season, trying to get this team as many wins as possible before thinking about what his immediate future may hold.
While changes have been made, the expectations of the organization have not.
“We certainly expect a win Sunday and to get back into the Western Division playoff race, “Reynolds declared.”This club should be competing for first and second year in and year out. We have every opportunity to be successful here and that’s the goal. Obviously a win Sunday is the first and foremost goal, we need to build something towards the end of this year, get back into the mix of the playoffs and again build towards sustained success.”
