Another year in the great northern league is in the books, capped by a thrilling finish and a championship for the Saskatchewan Roughriders in a game that came down to the final seconds.
Jubilation in Sasky. Heartbreak in Montreal.
Here are five takeaways from the 112th Grey Cup game.
112th GREY CUP
» Riders take down Alouettes to win 112th Grey Cup
» Game Tracker: 112th Grey Cup by the numbers
» Trevor Harris named the Most Valuable Player of the 112th Grey Cup
» Samuel Emilus named the Most Valuable Canadian of the 112th Grey Cup
» Sign up and watch CFL games on CFL+ in the U.S. and Internationally
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Saskatchewan quarterback Trevor Harris spiked the proverbial ball with such force that it would have deflated it completely.
That’s how emphatic his effort in the Grey Cup was, an effort that forever squashed the “yeah, but” lobby out there, those who wanted to asterisk his fine career because he hadn’t led a team — as a starting quarterback — to a championship.
In being named the game’s MVP, Harris rang up an efficiency rating of 119.7, completing 85.2 per cent of his passes — a Grey Cup record — going 23/27 for 302 yards.
Afterward, he continued to insist that talk of him never winning the big one didn’t really bother him.
Now, he doesn’t have to worry about anyone every bringing it up again, because Trevor Harris just spiked the ball in all his doubters’ faces.
WHY WAIT WHEN YOU CAN TURN THINGS AROUND RIGHT AWAY
Coaches don’t often throw their challenge flags too early in a game, preferring to hold that hankie until later on when you get into the higher stakes of late-game situations.
Saskatchewan head coach Corey Mace tossed his challenge flag early in the second quarter when it appeared the Alouettes had stopped the ‘Riders on a third and two, with defensive back Kabion Ento swatting a pass away from receiver Dohnte Meyers.
Mace won that challenge, got a fresh set of downs and then a touchdown on a Tommy Stevens sneak. Saskatchewan took the lead, 8-7.
“I saw it live, and thought I’d go upstairs and just double check,” said Mace of the early gambit. “You know, you don’t want to let emotions get the best of you.”
“It made sense for us right there. We knew we’d get that ball one the one.”
“Tommy Stevens is pretty good at his job, and it all worked out.”
SO, THERE YOU GO
If Harris was never bothered by talk of him not having led a team to a Grey Cup win, it appeared he has been bothered by chatter about the Roughriders having four championships to their credit (prior to Sunday).
“Yeah, you can kind of feel the weight,” said Harris, about the duty of winning in a province that desperately wanted another party.
“It’s like, everybody keeps saying ‘you’ve only won four, you’ve only won four.’ And you see your fans online defending the team, and they’re like, ‘you guys only have four Grey Cups.’ Well, now we have five.”
“And I’m sure they’ll say, ‘well, now you only have five.’
“But we won the most recent one. So there you go.”
IT MIGHT HURT LIKE HELL BUT THAT DOESN’T DROWN THE PRIDE
Montreal head coach Jason Maas did the thing that head coaches hate to have to do when he sat down after the Grey Cup to take reporters’ questions.
He was eloquent as always and magnanimous to boot.
Asked if it was too early to feel pride over his team’s efforts and season, he said it was not, despite the pain of a close, close loss.
Pride trumps pain.
“It does,” said Maas. “I told the guys out here, very proud of the group, very proud of our organization. You know, we all do this to win. We all came here expecting to win.
“But I hats off to Sask. I mean, they made the plays in the game, enough of them to beat us.”
The hell of it, Maas said, is the amount of time it’s going to take before his team can get back to climbing the mountain.
“Unfortunately, that takes six months to do, or six months before we’ll be together again. But we can all start working, so we’ll have our last team meeting on Tuesday, and then look forward to next year.”
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT TIMING
Maas pointed out something quite incredible during his post-game media conference, and that is that the Alouettes had not turned over the ball in the red zone all season long.
All. Season. Long.
“That’s 23 games we never turned the ball over in the red zone,” lamented Maas, “and we do it on second-and-two from the three-yard line. I mean, I never saw that coming.”
The Als were down by eight with three minutes to go when a promising Montreal drive ended with short-yardage quarterback Shea Patterson fumbling just outside the goal line.
“I know it’ll be tough on him,” said Maas of Patterson, “because he’s got six months to think about it. I wish we could go back to practice and play again next week so he wouldn’t. But you know, it happened, and you’ve gotta give (the Roughriders) credit for making the play, first and foremost.”