One more handoff remained for Trevor Harris.
After throwing three touchdown passes in Saturday’s season-opening, 29-21 victory over the Edmonton Elks, the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ starting quarterback presented a game ball to Corey Mace.
“We’ve got our leader, who leads us and loves us every day,” Harris told his teammates at Commonwealth Stadium — where, as a member of the Calgary Stampeders on Sept. 10, 2010, Mace celebrated his first CFL win as a player.
“He shows up every day, does the work, always believes in us, and is always giving us confidence.
“First head-coaching win!”
The triumphant players then clamoured for a speech.
“Much love, man, because I feel that,” Mace said a few minutes after nimbly evading a Gatorade shower. “My family feels that for real. I love you guys already.
“This is just the beginning, though. I don’t want another one of these until you have to give it to me, if you know what I’m talking about.
“Love and appreciation and respect, man. One-and-oh next week.”
The 2024 Roughriders are one-and-oh-my-goodness following Saturday’s stirring fourth-quarter rally.
Edmonton led 21-8 before Saskatchewan countered with 21 unanswered points in a span of 10 minutes.
Please forgive Mace if he isn’t inclined to spike the ball just yet.
After Saturday’s game, for example, he was quick to lament the Roughriders’ propensity for undisciplined penalties — a tendency that took points off the board and extended a fourth-quarter Elks possession.
“There’s definitely tons of stuff to coach up,” Mace told reporters on Saturday. “We could have won by 40 and I’d still find stuff for us to get better at.”
Right out of the Kent Austin playbook.
During Austin’s single, storybook season as the Roughriders’ Head Coach, he tended to be more critical of the team after victories.
He conventionally cited missed opportunities on offence, or some deficiencies on defence, in times of triumph. It was part of a concerted effort to stave off complacency and to prevent victories from camouflaging bad habits.
From beginning to end, Austin conducted a master class in how to guide a team through the ups and downs of a football season.
The Roughriders and their fans were ultimately rewarded with the third championship in franchise history. One of the Grey Cup-winning players was veteran centre Jeremy O’Day, who is now in his fifth year as the team’s Vice-President of Football Operations and General Manager.
It was O’Day who announced on Nov. 30 that Mace was the 48th Head Coach in franchise history.
Collectively, those coaches are 26-22 in their debuts as the Roughriders’ chief sideline strategist.
Mace has joined a one-and-oh fraternity that also includes Austin (2017), Frank Townsend (1914), Hick Abbott (1915), Heinie Rogers (1916), Jerry Crapper (1920), Jack Eadie (1922), Howie Milne (1927), Greg Grassick (1929), Curt Schave (1933), Dean Griffing (1936), Leo Schweinfurt (1939), Fred Grant (1947), Harry Smith (1951), Glenn Dobbs (1952), George Terlep (1958), Bob Shaw (1963), Dave Skrien (1971), John Payne (1973), Joe Faragalli (1981), Jack Gotta (1985), Don Matthews (1991), Ray Jauch (1994), Ken Miller (2008), Corey Chamblin (2012) and … whew! … Bob Dyce (2015).
Of course, a successful opener is not the be-all and end-all.
Dobbs won his debut as the Roughriders’ playing coach, but only two more victories ensued in 1952.
Eagle Keys started off at 0-1 — luckily for him, social media wasn’t a thing in 1965 — but rebounded quite nicely by going 68-28-3 over the rest of his tenure in Saskatchewan. That run of success was highlighted by a Grey Cup championship, the franchise’s first, in 1966.
The franchise’s fifth is the focus for Mace and O’Day.
“We’re all in it for the same reason, which is to win Grey Cups,” O’Day said on May 18 in Saskatoon during the annual State of the Nation fan forum.
“Corey hit the nail on the head when I was interviewing him. He said, ‘I can’t believe that there’s only four Grey Cup championships here.’ ”
Mace has been a part of three Cup-winning teams in the past decade.
With the Stampeders, he shared in championships as a defensive tackle (2014) and a defensive line coach (2018). He was the Toronto Argonauts’ defensive co-ordinator when they posted a 24-23 Grey Cup victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at Mosaic Stadium on Nov. 20, 2022.
The following year, Mace designed the defence for a Toronto side that tied a league record for regular-season victories (16).
“He had such a great run as a co-ordinator,” Harris noted.
“I tell him all the time that I’d love to see a statue of him outside Mosaic someday.”
