After a strong win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the Saskatchewan Roughriders are back in action today against Ottawa.
As the team takes the field, they will be without star receiver Shaq Evans who is out for the next two months with a broken foot.
Quarterback Cody Fajardo says it’ll be tough to not have Shaq in the lineup but has a lot of confidence in the remaining receivers.
“Shaq’s obviously, what I think, one of the best receivers in the league, he’s an all-star, he’s a guy that knows this offense inside and out,” said Fajardo. “Losing a guy like that is extremely tough but I got a lot of confidence in that room, that receiver room, we got a lot of guys that have shown well throughout training camp, but any time you lose an all-star receiver, it’s always a little bit tougher.”
One thing that plagued the Riders during their 30-8 win over Hamilton was penalties. The team took 20 in total.
Head Coach Craig Dickenson says discipline was a main focus in practice this week, as they are hoping to not take the same penalties Saturday night.
“We’ll see how it goes, I don’t anticipate having 20 penalties in this game, but I do anticipate having a few, and we can accept a few, but we don’t want so many that it makes it harder for us to win the game,” said Dickenson. “We want to play hard, play fast, and be physical without too many penalties, and I hope we improve this week when it comes to those.”
Both teams are looking to remain undefeated Saturday as the Riders enter the game 2-0, and the RedBlacks enter the game 1-0.
Game time is at 5:00 pm, with the pregame show starting at 2:00 pm on 620 CKRM.
