Craig Dickenson likens the play of the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ special teams in 2018 to a certain ride at the fair.
“It has been a rollercoaster, but the nice thing is we’ve been above the median line,” the Roughriders’ special-teams co-ordinator said after Wednesday’s closed practice at Mosaic Stadium. “It has been a rollercoaster with some nice highs and a few dips but nothing really bad.”
In other words, it’s a relatively tame coaster that everyone can enjoy.
“My mom (Sue) could ride this ride,” Dickenson noted. “Hopefully we get to the point where we get more highs than lows.
“Overall, I’m OK with the guys. The mistakes we’ve made have been correctible and we’ve worked hard to correct them.”
After Sunday’s 40-27 victory over the Calgary Stampeders, Saskatchewan sits fourth in the CFL in kickoff-return average (22.5 yards) and fifth in punt-return average (11.3 yards) this season. The Roughriders also are second in opponents’ kick-return average (20.4 yards) but seventh in opponents’ punt-return average (10.6 yards).
Saskatchewan has recorded one return touchdown (a 61-yarder by Christion Jones on a punt July 19 against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats) but has surrendered two (a 98-yarder by Hamilton’s Frankie Williams on a punt July 19 and a 78-yarder by Calgary’s Terry Williams on a punt July 28).
Dickenson couldn’t remember his special teams ever giving up touchdowns in back-to-back games during his 16 seasons as a CFL coach.
(That still paled in comparison to his worst memory. In a game Aug. 24, 2005, the Toronto Argonauts’ Bashir Levingston returned a punt 109 yards for a touchdown and then took back a missed field goal 111 yards for a TD when Dickenson ran the Stampeders’ special teams. But we digress.)
Saskatchewan also has blocked a punt this season — Sam Eguavoen stuffed Rob Maver’s kick, retrieved the ball and scored from 30 yards out on Sunday — as part of its up-and-down campaign on special teams.
“We certainly don’t want to give up big plays or negative plays,” Dickenson said. “The nice thing is, we’ve found a knack for bouncing back. We’ve got a lot of new faces here and we’re still trying a few new things in terms of schematics that we feel will help us in the long run.
“We’re disappointed that we’ve given up a couple (TDs), but at the same time, we tip our hats to the guys we’re playing against. There are some really good returners out there and really good coaches.”
“You can’t give up a return one week and then get a return or a block the next week. We have to start making more plays than we give up.”
Dickenson credited Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones with giving his special-teams coaches ample time during practices to work on things. That’s important for Jones, who noted Wednesday that his squad must improve in that phase of the game.
“Our guys have got to find that level of consistency that great football teams play with,” he said. “You can’t give up a return one week and then get a return or a block the next week. We have to start making more plays than we give up.”
The Stampeders held Christion Jones in check Sunday, limiting him to 38 yards on five punt returns and 96 yards on four kickoff returns. Terry Williams, meanwhile, recorded 118 yards on five kickoff returns and 43 yards on four punt returns for Calgary.
But the Roughriders perfectly defended an onside kick late in the fourth quarter. And, in the second quarter, Eguavoen’s block turned a 14-6 Saskatchewan lead into a 21-6 advantage.
“That was huge, especially at the time of the game that it happened,” said Eguavoen, who hadn’t scored a touchdown since his senior year of high school in Garland, Texas. “We definitely needed that. We needed a spark.”
Eguavoen wasn’t touched as he squirted through a hole in the Calgary offensive line. He got his hands on the ball as soon as it left Maver’s right foot and snagged the pigskin without breaking stride on his way to the end zone.
“It’s hard in this league to get a guy home free,” Dickenson said. “There are good coaches and the guys on the punt team are usually your best of the best.
“We’ve had guys who have come close a couple of times and haven’t been able to pull it off, so that was the first time in a while where we were able to design something where the guy we expected to get home got home and was able to finish it.”
Asked why the play worked so well, Dickenson could only laugh and say: “I don’t know.”
“You hope it works the way you draw it up and the fact that it did was very rewarding,” he added. “You never know exactly how an opposing team’s protection is going to adjust to a certain front. We thought we could get the look we wanted out of that, but we weren’t sure.
“We try to coach our guys to always anticipate, ‘You’ll be the guy and, when you’re there, you’ve got to finish it.’ We spent extra work last week blocking soccer balls with those specific guys so it wasn’t as if that was the first time they had been through and had been able to block a ball during the week.”
The Roughriders will face another special-teams test Saturday, when they visit the B.C. Lions. Thanks to Chris Rainey, the Lions are second in both punt-return and kickoff-return average this season.
Eguavoen is confident that the cover teams are up for the challenge.
“We’ve been pretty good other than the two touchdowns — and those were just little screws we had to tighten,” he said. “An inch of air can cause a touchdown on punt team. We don’t plan on getting scored on again.”
