CFL’s hottest team forces six turnovers to win fourth straight and clinch home CFL playoff game, but there was some weirdness
There are no perfect football games.
“You have no idea how incredible that feels,” said Allen, a Canadian who got bumped into the starting rotation to abide by the league’s complicated roster rules, during postgame interviews. “Usually I’m a special-teams player, so that first half was something I was aiming for.
“To get a Pick Six on my second play of the game, you could not draw that up. That’s the stuff of dreams.”
Winners of four straight following a midseason winless skid of seven games, Saskatchewan improved to 9-7-1 and sits second in the West with one game remaining and an outside shot at surpassing the first-place, 10-7 Winnipeg Blue Bombers. With an 8-9 record, third-place B.C. has clinched the West’s final playoff berth.
Allen’s play flattened the visitors, whose waning interest allowed the Roughriders to easily secure a much-coveted home playoff game. The Roughriders have a bye week before completing their regular season Oct. 26 at home against the hapless Calgary Stampeders. They will play host to the West semifinal Nov. 2 or West final Nov. 9.
Since missing six games with a knee injury, Harris has been the CFL’s best quarterback on its hottest team. He completed 25 of 30 passes for 271 yards with touchdown passes to Jerreth Sterns and Kian Schaffer-Baker before being replaced late in the fourth quarter by backup Shea Patterson.
“During that seven-game slide we got these wristbands that say, ‘Don’t flinch,’” Harris said during his postgame media scrum. “No matter what the situation is, up 21, down 21, you’ve gone seven weeks without a win: No flinching. Just continue to press on no matter what the situation is because we believe in who we are and who’s leading us.”
Lauther is on a streak of 20 straight successful field goals, but touchdowns are better.
Maybe that’s why the Riders tried a trick play on B.C.’s four-yard line. Given the ball on first-and-goal, Ouellette pulled up and threw to Samuel Emilus in the end zone. It was knocked down.
The call made little sense: Why not let the CFL’s most accurate passer make that throw? Even stranger, after Harris uncharacteristically missed his next attempt, with a 13-8 lead and knowing a major would have truly crushed the Lions, the Riders instead had Lauther kick a 12-yard field goal.
It was a weird, illogical series. It was rendered moot because the Lions didn’t score a second-half point against Saskatchewan’s playoff-ready defence, but it’s something else to fix while striving for perfection.
The Regina Leader-Post has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.
With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark leaderpost.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.