The Saskatchewan Roughriders, assertively on the clock, are counting down the ticks until the first kick.
The CFL’s 2025 regular season is to open on Thursday, when the Green and White opposes the Ottawa REDBLACKS (7 p.m., Mosaic Stadium).
“It’s a big deal for the people here,” quarterback Trevor Harris said. “We’re really excited to play in front of the best fan base in Canada.”
The longer-term goal is to be the best after advancing as far as the Western Final in 2024 under first-year Head Coach Corey Mace.
“We’re on the clock this year,” kicker Brett Lauther said. “It’s ‘go’ time out of the gate.
“We want to come out Thursday and, definitely at home, start the season off right.”
That is typically the result for the Roughriders, who have won their past four regular-season openers. But, without looking beyond Thursday’s game, the coaches and players know it is the finish that counts the most.
“Speaking to our expectations, we think it’s our time,” Mace said. “We’re on the clock, so what are we going to do with it?
“Everybody’s hungry, but it’s one thing to say it. It’s another thing to do it every day.
“Certainly, (Thursday) is another day where we’ve got to answer the bell.”
Mace was a key part of the solution in 2024, when he was named the West Division’s top coach. His theme in Year 1: “Build It.”
Now, much further along in the building process, the Roughriders aspire to advance to and win the 112th Grey Cup Game, slated for Nov. 16th in Winnipeg, to cap their 115th-anniversary season.
Messaging being crucial, Harris has ordered and distributed wristbands for the second season in succession.
Last year’s message: “Don’t Flinch.”
This year: “Decisively Engaged.”
“On the other side, Mace is talking this year about how we’re ‘on the clock,’ so we put ‘SR Time’ — for ‘Saskatchewan Roughrider Time’ — on there,” Harris said.
“But I think there’s a little more to that if you say it fast enough: ‘It’s our time.’
“I feel like it’s our time to be on the clock.”
SOUR TASTE SPARKS SUCCESS
The Roughriders’ four championship teams have something in common — a devastating playoff defeat the previous year.
“I think you need to lose before you can win,” Lauther said.
As a rookie with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2013, Lauther was on the visiting team’s sideline at historic Mosaic Stadium when Saskatchewan last won a Grey Cup. The Roughriders had previously captured CFL titles in 1966, 1989 and 2007.
Most of the 1966 Roughriders had been in the lineup for the 1965 Western Semi-Final, won 15-9 by the host Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
Late in the game, Ron Lancaster spotted Jim Worden in the end zone and fired a pass in the direction of the Roughriders’ tight end. Alas, what could have been a game-deciding TD pass hit an upright.
The 1989 Roughriders took the next step after losing 42-18 to the B.C. Lions in the 1988 Western Semi-Final, played at Taylor Field. That was the Roughriders’ first playoff game, period, since 1976.
Many members of the 2007 Grey Cup champions were fuelled by the outcome of the 2006 West Final, won 45-18 by the Lions in Vancouver. B.C. went on to win the Grey Cup.
“Losing the Western Final in 2006 was tough, but watching the Lions accept the trophy with excitement sparked a fire and vision,” Kerry Joseph, who quarterbacked Saskatchewan to a title in 2007, said on Thursday.
“It gave me a vision for 2007 and I shared that vision with my teammate, Fred Perry. I thought about that vision throughout the off-season and into training camp. I made a promise to deliver a Grey Cup championship in 2007.”
Promise kept.
For good measure, Joseph was named the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player.
Fast forward to Nov. 11th, 2012, when the Calgary Stampeders defeated Saskatchewan 36-30 in the Western Semi-Final. A 68-yard touchdown bomb from Drew Tate to Romby Bryant, who scored with 20 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, was the difference.
That heartbreaking loss was still on many of the Roughriders’ minds when they returned to McMahon Stadium for the 2013 Western Final — won 35-13 by Saskatchewan.
“I think everybody had that little bit of chip on their shoulder from the previous year,” defensive back Terrell Maze said.
A result from the previous year also gnaws at returnees to the Roughriders who remember, all too vividly, a season-ending loss in Winnipeg.
“It didn’t end last year the way we wanted,” Lauther said, “but I still think it was a huge step in the right direction.”
