Sunday\u2019s standing-room-only Labour Day Classic against the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThey\u2019ll stop you and say hi and ask for a picture or whatever. People are great.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love this town. Hopefully, whenever I do hang them up, I can sign a one-day contract and finish my career as a Rider.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a place that has been very special to me. I feel like it has brought a lot of joy back to playing the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been such a great thing being here with (Head Coach Corey) Mace and (Offensive Co-ordinator Marc) Mueller and the guys they have brought into this locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adding Harris to the equation has also helped the team progress to the point where this season\u2019s edition boasts a CFL-best 8-2 record.<\/p>\n
Harris, who was signed as a free agent by Vice-President of Football Operations and General Manager on Feb. 14, 2023, was a divisional All-CFL selection last season.<\/p>\n
This year, he has thrown for 2,695 yards and 18 touchdowns in nine starts. His quarterback-efficiency rating (118.5) leads the league by nearly 10 points.<\/p>\n
Dating back to last year, Harris has thrown at least one touchdown pass in 13 consecutive regular-season or playoff games. The team record of 15 is shared by Ron Lancaster (1976-77) and Kent Austin (all in 1993).<\/p>\n
Austin and Harris are tied for 15th on the CFL\u2019s All-Time touchdown passes list. Two more TD tosses will enable Harris to hit a career milestone of 200.<\/p>\n
Moreover, he is just 30 completions shy of reaching 2,976, overtaking Doug Flutie, and ascending to 10th All-Time.<\/p>\n
Not that individual numbers are of the slightest concern to Harris.<\/p>\n
The only stat that matters to him: Wins.<\/p>\n
Saskatchewan carries a league-best 8-2 record into an annual late-summer home-and-home set.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack-to-back against Winnipeg, it will be a big two-game stretch in our season,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always talk about that once you get to Labour Day, the real football begins, so we\u2019ve got to start becoming the team that\u2019s going to be able to contend for that Grey Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blue Bombers carry a 6-4 record into the 60th Labour Day Classic.<\/p>\n
This sets up only the ninth LDC in which both teams have had at least two more victories than losses. Sunday\u2019s showdown will be the 12th between clubs that both boast winning records.<\/p>\n
Adding to the intrigue, the Roughriders and Zach Collaros-quarterbacked Blue Bombers have collided in three of the past five Western Finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve really been the class of the CFL the last five years,\u201d Harris said of the Bombers. \u201cThey\u2019ve been to five straight Grey Cups. Ever since Zach has been there, they\u2019ve only been to Grey Cups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re kind of the top dog right now until proven otherwise. I think people need to prove in November that they can beat Winnipeg. For us to do that, we\u2019ve got to become a better team every day this week and be ready to execute the best we can on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anticipation is already building.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was at Costco (on Tuesday) and I think six or seven people stopped me and said, \u2018Hey \u2026 big game this weekend \u2026 we\u2019ve got eight wins, but we need nine,\u2019 \u201d Harris said. \u201cThere were quite a few people stopping and talking to you.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou kind of feel the game in the air and people talking about cooking out and what they\u2019re going to be doing for the Labour Day game. My landlord was telling me about her plans for that game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was thinking, \u2018Man, this is big-time,\u2019 so it\u2019s pretty exciting. We\u2019re really fired up about this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is the focus, in adherence to Head Coach Corey Mace\u2019s mindset of \u201cwe want to go 1-and-0 this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a larger context, Harris did muse about eventually signing a one-day contract and thereby retiring as a member of the Green and White.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019d get that opportunity, but I feel like a Roughrider,\u201d said Harris, 39, a proud product of tiny Waldo, Ohio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I fit into the type of people who are here \u2014\u00a0blue collar and hard workers \u2026 small town. I feel like I kind of fit into that mold. I\u2019m very, very thankful.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I always talk about, I never take a day for granted. I never take for granted that I get to wake up and be the quarterback here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI work my tail off to bring this city what they deserve to have here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Congratulations to Trevor Harris for an especially notable completion \u2026 of a shopping excursion! That was the reflexive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-104691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}