Rider Pride Report

CFL Insiders' Roughriders correspondent Terry McEvoy weighs in with his take on the Roughriders' game.

Well folks, even the largest of the Prairie detractors must admit that the 2007 version of the Saskatchewan Roughriders are for real.

It’s an omen for me, also. I’ve been away for the past two games, and in the recent past the Riders have a record in the neighborhood of

2 – 15 when I’m on vacation. However, they were 2 -0 this season, with the solid win in Toronto coupled with the come from behind thriller at the Sea of Mosaic. To be truthful, I thought the Riders would Flick the game away in the first half, taking things for Granted as two sure TD’s were mishandled. The play to D.J. Flick particularly concerned me, since the Esks immediately marched to score, creating a 14-point momentum swing.

Concern was pretty short-lived for me though. The suddenly imaginative Saskatchewan offence churned for 466 yards, and eventually the defensive boys made the plays against an effective Ricky Ray when they needed to. There were tons of highlight reel plays, but I think my personal favorite might have been the shovel pass to Wes Cates that was flipped OVER the head of the Edmonton defender. It beats the shotgun draw to death, doesn’t it?

It was good to see Chris Szarka more in the mix, as Kerry Joseph used pretty much his entire cast of characters. Flick continues to amaze me with his athleticism, but my greatest grin comes when the Riders toss the ball down the field, an event lacking in sufficient frequency in the past several seasons. Seems to be a team firing on all cylinders as they head to a break week.

But how about that weather? We were in Colorado, and saw the game on Altitude, a Colorado sports channel. My first ever game in person in Regina was a washed out pre-season game in 1994, and it was eerily similar to last week’s tilt. In the 1994 contest, the skies opened at roughly the same time as this past game, the lights went out, and the game was finished. It would certainly have been great fun to be there, and I very much applaud those thousands who stayed.

Like lots of others outside of Saskatchewan, I didn’t see the Riders rally to win, but was not at all surprised to see that they had. For me, that’s the difference that Kent Austin and his group have brought to the Taylor Field table. There’s an intangible hunger that I don’t think was present in the Barrett years, and it’s very easy to get excited about it.

There are lots of games to go, but does anybody have room for a spare body at Grey Cup?