OTTAWA — As the old saying goes, a win is a win regardless of how it played out on the field, but that never stops a team from looking to make things easier on themselves in the future.
You can put Saskatchewan Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris firmly in that opinion after how things played out in their 27-22 victory over the Ottawa Redblacks on Friday night in Ottawa.
The Riders got off to an atrocious start, falling behind 10-0 early, but steadily fought their way back into the game, eventually taking the lead in the third quarter and holding off a late-game push by the Redblacks.
So, a win is a win, and Saskatchewan improves to 3-1 on the season — but that’s not to say Harris and his offensive teammates are satisfied in any way.
“I mean, that's an ugly win offensively,” Harris told the Rider Broadcast Network’s Luc Mullinder after the game. “I think it's the worst we played this year, but we were able to make some big plays when we needed them and that's kind of the most important thing, is being able to respond to adversity. We were able to respond and climb out of the hole and I was proud of us in terms of being able to make some plays when we needed them offensively.”
Saskatchewan did all their damage in the middle two stanzas, putting up 13 points in the second quarter and then coming out after the halftime break and throwing down another 14 to pull away for good.
That was in no small part to catching on to what the Redblacks were doing defensively and taking advantage of the openings as they came — even if they were unexpected.
“They played a few different looks and they did a few different things than they didn’t show on film, they did a good job mixing things up,” Harris said. “So credit to them, but [offensive coordinator] Marc [Mueller] adjusted well, and we were able to get some gashes and some big plays later in the game. But for us offensively, we just got to make sure we're executing a little bit earlier in the game.”
While the fourth quarter once again proved to be Saskatchewan’s nemesis and saw Ottawa pick up the only points to get within a touchdown of taking the lead, it was how things played out in the final couple minutes that raised a few eyebrows.
With the Riders looking to kill off the clock and secure the win, a fresh Tommy Stevens came off the bench and absolutely rammed the ball down the Redblacks throats, getting 29 yards on the ground and running out the final 2:35 of the game.
You can add Harris to the many onlookers who were more than impressed with the clock-killing performance.
“He's such a weapon,” Harris said. “Everybody talks about how great he is in short yardage, but what they don't know is the Tommy Package that comes in late in the game like that. He's able to kind of dagger a team like that and if we get in a second medium, second long situation, I'll go back in and try and keep Tommy on the field, which is what we were able to do. Then Tommy kind of closed it out with the o-line, playing some smashmouth football.”
All in all, it wasn’t Harris’ best game of the season by any means, as after a couple of 400-yard passing games, he ‘only’ completed 18 of 31 passes for 243 yards. That leaves the veteran QB looking for things to improve against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats next week.
“I feel like I'm playing pretty good football this year, but tonight was like my floor, in terms of I'm going to play better,” Harris said. “There's always some great things that we do out there but we want to hone in on making sure that I'm a little bit more on time and figuring out what I need to do to put the ball in the receiver's hands a little bit more cleanly in certain situations. We always have things we want to clean up and get better at.”
As for what’s up against the TiCats, little is going to change in how Saskatchewan prepares for a dangerous team — in short, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
“It's just about trust in our process,” Harris said. “That's the beauty of this group, [week to week] there is no difference in our process in terms of how we approached the week. We watched the film, we went through corrections, we had some tough conversations and I feel like we made some corrections.
“But obviously, we want to make sure we're a little bit more sharp offensively. it's not always going to be easy, and it's not always going to be great. I mean, they're pros, too. They make some plays, and they do a good job. So I was proud of us for responding, but we've got to make sure that we come in this week, hone in on the details, and get ready to be in attack mode all week, because Hamilton will be a tough test.”
The Roughriders and Tiger-Cats will do battle on Sunday, July 12 at 5 p.m. at Mosaic Stadium.
