ROB VANSTONE: Riders' actions will speak louder than words
Rob Vanstone
MONTREAL — Having addressed reporters’ questions in consummately professional fashion, Trevor Harris made time for one more inquiry.
“Trevor, could I get a picture?” one fan asked on Monday afternoon after the Montreal Alouettes defeated Harris and the Saskatchewan Roughriders 44-24 at Percival Molson Memorial Stadium.
After the Roughriders’ dry spell was extended on a rainy day, Harris could have made a beeline for the visiting team’s cramped dressing room without acknowledging the request.
Instead, he stopped, offered a cordial greeting, patiently posed for a selfie, and made someone’s day when his own day wasn’t the best.
“We’re not where we need to be as a team,” Harris told the media after absorbing a fourth consecutive loss for the first time as Saskatchewan’s starting quarterback.
“It was a whupping in the second half. It sucks. A lot of times right after games, you’re feeling emotional as I do right now. I don’t really have tremendous words for that, but I know for a fact that we’ll come back and fight.
“We have to play our best football now, because there is no other option. We win the last two games, we’re in.”
The last two games are at Mosaic Stadium, conveniently enough, on back-to-back Saturdays. Montreal pays a return visit next weekend. The Edmonton Elks are in town a week henceforth.
By taking care of business in friendly environs, the Roughriders would finish the regular season with a 10-8 record and ensure their presence in the CFL playoffs.
Another post-season berth seemed to be a fait accompli when the defending Grey Cup champions were 4-1, 6-2 and 8-4.
Over the past four games, though, the Roughriders have scored eight touchdowns but allowed 13.
Saskatchewan has allowed four, four and five TD passes in a three-game span that includes Monday’s Grey Cup rematch.
Montreal amassed 524 yards of net offence on Monday, when the Alouettes scored 24 consecutive points after a 51-yard Brett Lauther field goal had narrowed the gap to 17-16 early in the third quarter.
“We got behind the chains a time or two in the second half, but it’s all self-inflicted wounds,” Harris said after throwing his 30th and 31st TD passes of the season.
“We’re there. The plays are there to be made and we’ve just got to make them — whether it’s a read, a catch, a throw, a run, a block … whatever it is.
“It’s unfortunate right now. I don’t have a ton of great words to give some in-depth analysis, other than it’s just disappointing.”
Especially after a first half in which the Roughriders dominated the time of possession (owning the football for 16:02) and matched Montreal in offensive plays (29).
It helped early on that A.J. Ouellette was efficient, rushing for 49 of his game-high 77 yards over the first half.
To begin the third quarter, the Roughriders overcame a first-and-15 predicament and moved the football to within range for Lauther.
“That first half, that’s exactly the start we need,” centre Logan Ferland noted after his 100th CFL regular-season game. “We just need to finish. We’ve got to keep that going in the second half.
“That’s on all of us. That’s on every single person on the offensive side of the ball, on the defensive side of the ball and on special teams. We need to keep that momentum going.
“It’s on nobody but ourselves.”
To a degree, the first half provided a template for how the Roughriders should play — and another example of how they have played. But …
“We need to score more,” Harris stated. “We had a punt and two field goals. We need to score touchdowns. Whatever it takes to get those drives into the end zone, no matter what it is, that’s what needs to be done.
“We can sit here and say these things. We have to do them. It has come down to us being doers of the word and not just saying what we need to do.”
A couple of statement wins before a home crowd would be therapeutic.
“Anytime you have the best fans in the league, obviously they provide an advantage, and you get to sleep in your own bed,” Harris said. “But that’s neither here nor there. We have to play better football.
“We can’t lean on anything except us playing better football — and that’s the bottom line. If we don’t play better football, we go home. So we have to play better football, straight up. No ifs, ands or buts about it. We’ve got to be better.
“We can’t just say it. We’ve got to actually do it.”