MONTREAL — Kenny Shaw was a bit of a mess Sunday.
The 26-year-old receiver admitted he was all over the place mentally as he made his debut with the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders against the Montreal Alouettes. The contest was his first since he suffered three torn knee ligaments in a game Aug. 26, 2017.
“I was happy, I was nervous, I was jittery, I was hoping I didn’t get mind clusters with the plays,” Shaw said after Saskatchewan’s 34-29 victory over the Als. “There was so much going through my head that I had to bring myself down and say, ‘I’ve played this game before.’ That’s what I did and we got the W.”
Shaw was a 1,000-yard receiver with the Toronto Argonauts in 2016, a performance that earned him a free-agent contract from the Ottawa Redblacks in 2017.
The former Florida State University standout injured a foot while warming up for Ottawa’s first regular-season game that season and the injury required surgery. Shaw returned eight games later but, in just his second game back, he shredded his right knee in a contest against the B.C. Lions.
Surgery and rehab followed. In the months after Ottawa released Shaw, teams contacted him to check on his availability for training camp, but he told them he wasn’t ready to go at that time.
When he felt he was ready, he had his agent reach out to clubs — and the Roughriders signed him to their practice roster on Aug. 22.
Five weeks later, Shaw was activated to replace an injured Naaman Roosevelt against Montreal.
Shaw caught five passes for 75 yards in the contest, including a 26-yarder on a second-and-17 play in the first quarter. That catch helped set up a 27-yard Tre Mason touchdown run that got the Roughriders on the board.
“I don’t think anybody knew what was going through my head on that first catch, getting welcomed back to the CFL,” said Shaw, who led the Roughriders with three second-down receptions that produced first downs. “I had to keep it in and keep going. It was too early to be too emotional.”
Luckily for Shaw, he held his emotions in check as the game progressed despite the magnitude of his accomplishment.
“I was thinking so much,” he said. “You don’t understand the half of it. Being out 13 months, you get in the funk that you’re all alone. To see the support and see that people actually know my story now is a good thing — and I’m embracing it.”
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Saskatchewan cornerback Nick Marshall is now 2-0 in his career against Johnny Manziel.
Marshall was the quarterback for the Auburn Tigers when they defeated Manziel’s Texas A&M Aggies 45-41 in an NCAA clash on Oct. 19, 2013.
Marshall was 11-for-23 passing for 236 yards with two touchdowns and rushed 20 times for 100 yards and two more majors for the 24th-ranked Tigers. The aforementioned Mason, who was Auburn’s tailback that day, rushed 27 times for 178 yards and one TD.
Manziel completed 28 of 38 pass attempts for 454 yards with four touchdown passes and two interceptions and had 18 carries for 48 yards and a TD for the seventh-ranked Aggies.
Marshall said he won’t hold his record against Manziel over the head of the Als’ quarterback, noting that he considers Manziel “a great guy to look to. He’s a ball player.”
“He showed me (Sunday) that he’s still the poised guy that he was in college,” Marshall said. “He’s still making plays with his feet, but he’s throwing the ball a lot better than he was in college.
“At the end of the day, he’s still Johnny Football and he’s still going to make plays.”
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The play of the Roughriders’ defence Sunday was overshadowed by the work of the offence.
Saskatchewan generated season highs in first downs (32), passing yards (394) and net yards (502), held the ball for 35 minutes 20 seconds and scored four offensive touchdowns in a game for the first time this season.
The defence, meanwhile, surrendered only 14 first downs, 80 yards rushing, 138 passing yards and 183 net yards. Manziel completed just nine of 16 pass attempts — his two touchdown passes covered 67 yards, meaning his other seven completions were for a total of just 71 yards — and he was sacked five times.
He also rushed five times for 45 yards, showing the elusiveness the Roughriders expected going into the game.
“He’s a little bit faster than what I thought,” said Saskatchewan head coach-GM Chris Jones, who also oversees the defence. “If he hadn’t had the scrambling ability that he had, they would have given up a few more sacks.”
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Jones began his CFL coaching career in Montreal in 2002, when he was hired by then-Als head coach Don Matthews to be the team’s defensive line coach.
On Sunday, Jones earned his 
24th regular-season victory as the Roughriders’ head coach — a total that tied him with Matthews on Saskatchewan’s all-time coaching victories list.
“Coach Matthews is certainly an instrumental part of my career and taught me a lot about the game of football,” Jones said. “I’m very appreciative of the time that we had while I was here. He taught me a lot.”
The Roughriders won 25 games during Matthews’ time in Saskatchewan, but Ray Jauch was the interim head coach for one of those victories in 1993 after Matthews had to undergo an emergency appendectomy.
The victory Sunday also was Jones’ 50th in the regular season as a CFL head coach. He guided the Edmonton Eskimos to a 26-10-0 record in his two seasons (2014-15) with them.
