said Head Coach Corey Mace<\/a>, whose team is coming off a 20-13 victory over the host Ottawa REDBLACKS.<\/p>\n\u201cWe saw a lot of stuff on tape that we just want to be better at. We get an opportunity do it this week, which is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mace also appreciates the fact that the players aren\u2019t thinking beyond the X\u2019s and O\u2019s and what needs to be done to defeat Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u201cKnowing myself and the staff and the leadership group of the team, everybody is aligned with our order of operation,\u201d he said, \u201cand you love that the guys are locked in on that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a good thing. I know that they\u2019ll hear all the other stuff about all the things that are at stake. No matter what game it is, there\u2019s always outside noise that I know the guys hear. But, for the most part, everybody\u2019s just looking to go execute and try to win a game.\u201d<\/p>\n
A victory would give Saskatchewan its best record (12-4) at the 16-game mark since the 1970 edition went 14-2 and established an enduring team record for wins.<\/p>\n
By achieving the desired result on Friday, the Roughriders would finish first for the ninth time in the post-Second World War era.<\/p>\n
Saskatchewan has finished first in 1951, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1976, 2009 and 2019. The 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1976 clubs also boasted the CFL\u2019s best overall record but, oddly enough, were not among the Roughriders\u2019 four Grey Cup-winning teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about playing championship-level football,\u201d Harris said. \u201cI\u2019ve won two Grey Cups, and those teams were 9-and-9 (2012 Toronto Argonauts) and 8-9-and-1 (2016 REDBLACKS). The times we\u2019ve been the team that clinched early, like in Ottawa (in 2018), we made it to the Grey Cup but we didn\u2019t win it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about getting hot at the right time. This is the time to get hot. We\u2019re very well aware of that and, yes, it\u2019s absolutely important to go 1-and-0 this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a tremendous week of practice. The enthusiasm, the energy and the execution have been great. It\u2019s time for us to go translate that to the field.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ideally, the Saskatchewan Roughriders will enjoy a hot streak as the weather cools down. \u201cI\u2019ve always liked the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-202969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202969","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=202969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}