REGINA — The most unusual start to a season in recent Saskatchewan Roughriders history is getting closer and closer to the rearview mirror.
The team is back on the field at Mosaic Stadium this week after spending the last seven days at home, thanks to receiving their first bye of the season in Week 1. All told, the Green and White will have had three weeks off when they face the B.C. Lions in their first Canadian Football League game of meaning since winning the Grey Cup last November.
Safe to say, everyone is champing at the bit, and no one more so than quarterback Trevor Harris. The veteran pivot spoke to the media after practice and touched on how unorthodox the start of the campaign has been .
“Yeah, very strange,” he began. “You get into a nice rhythm during training camp, and then it's like, ‘hey, great camp, guys’. You usually roll right into the regular season, but this time it's like, ‘see you next week’ and it’s ‘whoa, wait, what?’ So you come back out here and it’s get the cobwebs out yesterday and a little bit today. But we're fired up that it's finally game week, and I guess on the positive note we only have two bye weeks the rest of the year, so only two weeks without Rider games for a while.”
The long, early layoff might come as a concern, but considering the Lions are in the same place thanks to the World Cup being held at B.C. Place, Harris feels they’re on an equal footing. The key now is just to be as prepared as possible without getting too far into it.
“During the bye week, it was just business as usual, I came in to get some work in and watch some film. But the thing is you have to be careful you don't watch too much film, you go into these bye weeks, and a lot of times if you get to a certain point, you watch a little too much film, you can start overthinking things. But I feel like we're in a good spot right now, and we've got to have some great meetings, a great night of film watch tonight and get back at it tomorrow.”
As for how he’s feeling physically, the news is nothing but good for the 40-year-old pivot as he heads into his 14th season in the CFL. That’s in no small part due to a strict off-season regimen that put Harris in a solid position to perform heading into camp, and the extra week off only helped in that regard.
“A lot of times you don't know that your arm's a little bit tired from training camp because you just keep plugging away every day,” Harris said. “But it's a good way to get your arm in shape, and getting that week off was a good time for me to recharge and be able to get the ball downfield a little bit better. So, shoot, we're fired up, I'm fired up with where I'm at in terms of physically how I feel.”
That only adds to the excitement of hitting the field and playing for real.
“Third year in the offence with a tremendous play caller like [offensive coordinator Marc] Mueller, the sky's the limit for this group, and we've just got to make sure that we're pressing on the gas pedal every day,” Harris said.
As Harris touched on, with so much familiarity with the system among the team's veterans, there’s a lot of confidence that things will come together quickly, even if other teams have a bit of a jump on them in playing time.
“A lot of times there's certain nuances in plays that are different, and so you're always growing and learning in those things,” Harris said. “But in terms of the base plays, the things that we've done in the past that we'll continue to do, we've got a great feel for one another in terms of how we like things done and whatnot. So heading into a season we know we have those things, but also we've got some new things that are in the works. Coach Mueller's always evolving, as the great o coordinators always are, and we're really pushing the envelope to do some new things. We’ll see how it works out come game time.”
The Roughriders and Lions are set to do battle on Saturday, June 13, with kick-off at 5 p.m. at Mosaic Stadium. It will be a special night, as the team will hold their Grey Cup title celebration and unveil the newest championship banner. The Rider Broadcast Network will have all the news and views beginning at 2 p.m., with Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder bringing you the game call at 5 p.m.
