3 POINTS OF THE GAME

#1: CLASSIC COUNTDOWN

The 61^st Labour Day Classic — Sunday’s home date with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers — features two perennial rivals who are part of a tight West Division race. Saskatchewan (7-4) is in second place, behind the Edmonton Elks (8-3) and ahead of Winnipeg (6-5), the B.C. Lions (6-5) and Calgary Stampeders (5-6). Roughriders versus Blue Bombers is always a happening, regardless of the time of year or the circumstances, but every West-versus-West game will have extra meaning as September begins and so does the stretch run. The Roughriders, by the way, have won 39 of the first 60 Labour Day Classics.

#2: RIVALS REBOUND

The Roughriders and Blue Bombers are both coming off games in which they returned to form. Saskatchewan responded to back-to-back losses by defeating the Toronto Argonauts 28-24 on Saturday at a sold-out Mosaic Stadium. Winnipeg had lost three of four games before posting a 44-28 home-field victory over the Montreal Alouettes last Friday. The victorious quarterbacks — Saskatchewan’s Trevor Harris and Winnipeg’s Zach Collaros — both broke into the CFL with Toronto in 2012. Harris and Collaros are the only starting quarterbacks to represent the West Division representatives in the last six Grey Cup Games. Collaros guided the Blue Bombers to five consecutive championship-game berths before Harris called signals for the Roughriders in the 2025 league final. He was named the Grey Cup MVP after Saskatchewan’s 25-17 victory over Montreal.

#3: MILESTONE MONITOR

Harris needs only 127 passing yards to tie Doug Flutie for 10^th on the CFL’s All-Time list. Flutie, a six-time winner of the Most Outstanding Player award, passed for 41,355 yards over eight seasons (1990-97). As well, Harris needs 15 completions to tie Ron Lancaster (3,384) for eighth All-Time, and 16 completions for 1,000 as a Roughrider. KeeSean Johnson is also poised to hit the magic 1,000 figure — in receiving yards this season. He is at 990. Also worth noting: Tommy Stevens needs one TD to tie the Roughriders’ record for majors in a season by a quarterback. Kerry Joseph, who had the game-winning TD run in the 2007 Labour Day Classic, set a team record for QBs by scoring 13 times that year.