Even though\u00a0Saskatchewan Roughriders’\u00a0linebacker A.J. Allen and B.C. Lions’ quarterback Nathan Rourke are friends off the field, that changes when the two\u00a0face each other in a CFL game.<\/p>\n
“We want to win every game.\u00a0He’s the opposing quarterback,\u00a0I want to make sure he has a horrible day, but also\u00a0he’s a great guy, he’s a friend. You want to see people\u00a0get out of the game healthy,” Allen said.<\/p>\n
“I hope with all due respect, he has a horrible day. I hope he can’t see,\u00a0I hope he’s got two left eyes and two left arms and two left feet as well. And he throws 17 interceptions and he rushes for negative 80 yards. What else? And he fumbles eight times. I hope that because that means we’re having a great day. Again, wish him the best. But right now, he’s the opposing quarterback. We have things\u00a0to achieve.”<\/p>\n
Allen registered a\u00a0pick-six <\/a>off Rourke last year which checked in at No. 10\u00a0on the CFL’s top plays of 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Where’s the dislike button?” Rourke joked on social media. “Right next to the super like button,” Allen replied.<\/p>\n There’s a habit Allen would jokingly like to break when it comes to him getting interceptions.<\/p>\n “My first two Interceptions\u00a0in my career are on the first pass and play of the game,” Allen said. “Keep being in the right spot at the right time.\u00a0I told you last time, I’m trying to get a pick in the second quarter at this point. I got to stretch this a little bit because this is a crazy run of mine. Something later,\u00a0not the first pass play,\u00a0I’m aiming for that this week.”<\/p>\n In the\u00a0last game for the Green and White, the Riders\u00a0lost to the Calgary Stampeders 24-10, marking the team’s\u00a0first loss of the 2025 CFL season.<\/p>\n “We feel confident. We feel prepared that we’re able to rectify those mistakes,\u00a0get on the right path,\u00a0get back to playing Rider football and\u00a0being us,” Allen said. “Being us, showing an opportunity for us to really show who we are,\u00a0we stop to run, we stop the pass and we are who we put on tape.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Allen finished the game against the Stamps with four defensive tackles, one interception, one forced fumble, one tackle for loss and one special team tackle. This season, the six-foot,\u00a0210-pound linebacker has played five games for the Riders,\u00a0recording\u00a023 defensive tackles, two special team tackles, one sack, one interception and one forced fumble.<\/p>\n According to Allen, he took inspiration from an NFL legend on how to overcome a loss.<\/p>\n “I think it was Ray Lewis. He’s like:\u00a0‘You want to learn from your wins as much as you learn from your losses.\u00a0Because if you’re only learning when you lose, you’re only learning sometimes. If we went 18-0\u00a0you’d never learn anything anymore compared to going 0-18,” Allen recalled.<\/p>\n “Either way, you’re trying to learn something from every game, every day, every practice.\u00a0If you’re not, I don’t want you in this building.\u00a0That’s what it needs to be. We’re all striving to be great\u00a0and none of us is perfect.”<\/p>\n Saskatchewan\u00a0takes\u00a0a flight for their Week 7 CFL match-up against the Lions on\u00a0Saturday. Be sure to catch the pre-game show with Teagan Witko, Justin Dunk and Wes Cates at 2 p.m. Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder have the game call at 5 p.m. You can hear everything on the 620 CKRM Co-operators Rider Broadcast Network.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even though\u00a0Saskatchewan Roughriders’\u00a0linebacker A.J. Allen and B.C. Lions’ quarterback Nathan Rourke are friends off the field, that changes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,4404,4398,1893,4397,4402,4401,4400,4399,82,4403],"class_list":["post-10923","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-country","tag-country-music","tag-radio","tag-regina-news","tag-reigna-pats","tag-rider-radio","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan-sports","tag-sports","tag-sportscage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10923","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=10923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}