The Saskatchewan Roughriders have had more than a few players step up in support of their injury-riddled receiving corps over the last few weeks, and it was Dhel Duncan-Busby’s turn to come up big in the Labour Day Classic.
The third-year veteran caught 10 of the 11 passes thrown his way for 148 yards in receiving and as a result was named one of the CFL Players of the Week when the honours were announced Monday.
It was naturally a special moment for Duncan-Busby after putting in plenty of time to improve his game.
“It means a lot,” he said after practice on Thursday. “I feel like I've been putting in a lot of work, especially throughout the offseason and throughout this season, just to be able to get to the point of where I'm at right now. It doesn’t stop there. You just got to keep building.”
While Duncan-Busby was catching almost everything thrown his way last Sunday, he had little idea of just how well things were going until after the game. His focus on the task at hand.
“I knew that I caught a good amount of passes, but I had no clue what the final stack count was until I got inside,” he said.
Duncan-Busby had to put a bit of extra work in to haul in a few of his passes, including a twisting over-the-shoulder catch in the fourth quarter that helped set up Saskatchewan’s final touchdown of regulation.
Interestingly enough, it wasn’t the first time he had a crack at a catch like that that week.
“What's crazy is we kind of had a similar play like that in a practice and I actually dropped that pass,” Duncan-Busby said. “It just came full circle, had the same opportunity, Trevor put it up in the spot for me to go get it, and it just happened and worked out in my favour.”
After Sunday’s contest, Duncan-Busby now has 35 catches for 504 yards to go along with four touchdowns on the season, all career highs.
Next up is the Labour Day Classic rematch on Saturday afternoon in Winnipeg. Duncan-Busby is naturally looking for a similar performance, but he and his teammates are plenty aware of what they’re going to be in for with the Princess Auto Stadium crowd.
“We understand the kind of environment that we're going to be going into this week, and we just got to take it to them,” he said. “They're going to be loud for them, so we just got to get into the game early, start fast, and then that way we can take them out of it.”
The Rider Broadcast Network pregame show begins at 11 a.m. on Saturday with Teagan Witko, Wes Cates and plenty of special guests. Dave Thomas and analyst Luc Mullinder will then have the game call at kickoff at 2 p.m.
