Ajou Ajou put first things first while emphasizing the importance of staying in the moment.
“We’ve just got to be great where our feet are,” the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ always-animated rookie receiver said after the Corey Mace-coached CFL team practised at Mosaic Stadium on Monday.
“Coach preaches it all the time, but it’s just facts. The recipe is so simple. Just work.
“No hard feelings, man. I might cuss you out because you were BS’ing on that route, but it’s all love, man.
“I just want to see you win. I just want to see you do better, so just work.”
The Roughriders’ work to this point has produced a 5-4-1 record and 11 points — a total that places them first in the West Division.
Saskatchewan remains in top spot despite going four games without a victory (0-3-1).
“The thing about this team is we never point fingers,” Ajou said. “It’s never, ‘If I would have got that block, we would have won the game.’
“No. Just relax. You’re not Superman. Everyone on this team is like, ‘That’s my bad, my bad, my bad.’
“Coach says, ‘You’ve got to be selfish about being selfless,’ and it’s exactly that on this team.”
Saskatchewan is ahead of the B.C. Lions (5-5-0), Winnipeg Blue Bombers (4-6-0), Calgary Stampeders (4-6-0) and Edmonton Elks (3-7-0).
“I bleed green,” Ajou said. “That’s really the only colour I see for real now. I really don’t care what’s going on (elsewhere).
“I only care about what the Riders do and how the Riders play football and how the Riders eat breakfast and brush their teeth in the morning and all that.
“I’m all about that, and that’s how I’ve got to be, because it starts from within.”
Mace knows full well that the Roughriders must start stringing together victories if they are to remain atop the division.
“We’ve got eight games left and six of them are against Western opponents,” he noted. “It’s a tight race right now.
“It’s crazy to say. We haven’t won a game in almost a month and we’re still in the hunt. It’s going to be a bloodbath, so to speak.
“We’ve played a lot of tight games versus a lot of opponents. Hopefully that plays in our favour going down the stretch.”
The Roughriders are to return to action on Thursday against the host Toronto Argonauts (5:30 p.m., TSN, CKRM).
After that, the Roughriders will have only one more game against an East opponent. The Ottawa REDBLACKS are to visit Mosaic Stadium on Sept. 28.
MAJOR WAIT
KeeSean Johnson scored his first touchdown as a Roughrider when he hauled in a 12-yard scoring strike from Trevor Harris on Friday against the visiting Montreal Alouettes.
“It felt good,” Johnson said, “but it would have felt better with a W.”
Johnson had five catches for 90 yards in a 27-24 loss to Montreal.
In five games this season, he has 20 catches for 256 yards. He has 16 receptions for 222 yards over his last three games.
“I’m enjoying it here,” Johnson said. “I love the team. I love the guys. We have a great relationship.
“I’m loving my time here and I just want to continue helping the guys.”
Johnson’s touchdown was his first since Oct. 31, 2019, when he caught a nine-yard scoring pass from Kyler Murray for the Arizona Cardinals against the San Francisco 49ers as an NFL rookie.
LAUTHER’S LEAP
Brett Lauther is seven points shy of overtaking Jack Abendschan and becoming the third-highest scorer in Roughriders history.
Dave Ridgway leads the list with 2,374 points, followed by Paul McCallum (1,615), Abendschan (863) and Lauther (857). The three players above Lauther are in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
“Something like that is a team stat,” the Roughriders’ sixth-year placement specialist said. “It’s really just from being here for a while.
“Someday when I’m done playing, maybe I’ll reflect on something like that, but for now that’s more of a tribute to Jorgen (Hus), Adam (Korsak), Jon (Ryan), Josh (Bartel), Kaare (Vedvik), everyone who has blocked, my family who stuck with me for years to get me here, all the fans and everyone in the province.
“That’s not really anything to do with me. It might be my name there, but each and every letter has someone else’s name or someone who has kind of stuck with me and been with me the whole way.
“I just want to make sure I thank everyone for giving me these opportunities.”
Hus has been the Roughriders’ long snapper since 2015. Four punters — Bartel, Vedvik, Ryan and Korsak — have doubled as the holder since Lauther joined the Green and White full-time in 2018.
HEAD START
On Friday, fullback Thomas Bertrand-Hudon became the first professional football player to wear a Guardian Cap in a regular-season game.
The Cap, a protective shell that fits over the helmet, has proven to be effective in reducing concussions.
“I woke up the day of the game and I was on kickoff — a position where a lot of guys have got hurt before — and I just wanted to focus on my safety,” Bertrand-Hudon told reporters on Monday.
“I basically talked to the equipment-managing staff (Gordon Gilroy and Ty Robinson) and asked them if I could wear it.
“It was more a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
Once the game began, Bertrand didn’t notice the different.
“It’s normal,” he said. “We practise with them every day, so it didn’t feel any heavier or anything like that. It felt the same, actually, just like I was going out to practise.”
Bertrand-Hudon had the full support of his coaches and teammates.
“It’s player safety and they earned the right (to wear the Cap),” Mace said. “With the amount of special teams that Thomas plays, it’s a physical sport.
“I saw it and I thought, ‘Oh, OK.’ As the game went on, you could barely tell the difference.
“If the players are comfortable wearing it and they feel safe and that they need to do it, that’s what it’s there for.”
Guardian Caps were introduced in the CFL in the spring of 2023.
Their use is mandated in training-camp and padded-practice situations, but game-related decisions are left up to the players.
“I would hope that if somebody felt like they wanted to wear it, they should have, instead of just waiting for somebody else to do it,” Mace said. “It’s about health and safety.
“But if Thomas is the one to kind of start the floodgates for it, good on him and good on whoever wants to wear it.”
“THAT’S JUST A.J.”
Mace intends to keep close tabs on the status of running back A.J. Ouellette, who produced 111 yards from scrimmage — 74 along the ground and 34 on three receptions — against Montreal despite being less than 100 per cent.
“He peels himself off the turf and then tries to leap and gets helicoptered out of bounds trying to get a first down for his team,” Mace marvelled. “That’s just A.J.”
Ouellette returned to the lineup on Friday after missing three games with a hip injury. Frankie Hickson was the starting tailback while Ouellette was sidelined. The Roughriders have also dressed an American fullback, Clint Ratkovich, for all 10 regular-season games.
Ouellette was an Argonaut from 2019 to 2023 before signing with Saskatchewan as a free agent in February.
“I would assume it would be important for him to play this game, but if it’s something we’ve got to look at with (playing) Frankie or Rat, these are guys who we trust,” Mace said.
Due to a sore hip, Ouellette was a limited participant in Monday’s practice.
INJURY UPDATE
On Monday’s injury report, Ajou (finger), linebackers C.J. Avery (head) and Melique Straker (hamstring), receiver Kian Schaffer-Baker (shoulder), defensive back Deontai Williams (healthy scratch) and defensive lineman Habakkuk Baldonado (head) were listed as full participants in practice.
Ouellette, defensive back Jaxon Ford (wrist) and linebacker Nick Wiebe (knee) were listed as limited. Ford and Wiebe — the Roughriders’ past two second-round draft picks — have yet to play this season.
Receiver Mitch Picton, who suffered an ankle injury shortly after catching a 33-yard touchdown pass on Friday, did not practise. Mace said the team is awaiting additional word on the extent of Picton’s injury.
EXTRA POINTS
• The Roughriders announced the signing of offensive lineman Trevon Tate, who made four starts at right tackle for Calgary earlier this season. The addition of Tate led to the release of quarterback Eric Barriere, who dressed for six games while Harris was recuperating from a knee injury.
• Dohnte Meyers has had back-to-back eight-catch, 101-yard games since making his CFL debut. He is tied with Craig Ellis (1984) for the most receptions by a Roughrider (16) after his first two games with the team. With 202 yards after two games, Meyers is behind Mike Saunders (279 yards, 1992), Larry Thompson (233, 1994), Freeman Johns III (216, 1978), Daric Zeno (206, 1985) and Tron Armstrong (204, 1986-87).
• Saskatchewan is preparing for its first game in Toronto since Sept. 28, 2019, when the Roughriders won 41-16 at the Rogers Centre. The Roughriders did not play in Toronto during the COVID-shortened 2021 season. In 2022 and 2023, the Argonauts’ “home” game against Saskatchewan was moved to Nova Scotia as part of Touchdown Atlantic.
