{"id":430616,"date":"2026-01-24T16:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T16:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/430616\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T16:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T16:50:09","slug":"corey-mace-explains-why-josh-bell-was-promoted-to-defensive-coordinator-with-roughriders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/430616\/","title":{"rendered":"Corey Mace explains why Josh Bell was promoted to defensive coordinator with Roughriders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Josh Bell was recently promoted to the role of defensive coordinator with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, a title formerly held by head coach Corey Mace. The 40-year old bench boss recently opened up about the decision to reward his longtime colleague.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany teams would want Joshua Bell to be their defensive coordinator and it\u2019s something that wasn\u2019t a secret for myself or Josh. It\u2019s something that we talked about and certainly have been prepping Josh and pushing Josh to prep for taking that next step, and working hand-in-hand with him over the last couple years in doing so, it was just his time,\u201d said Mace from the CFL\u2019s offseason winter meetings in Calgary.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s definitely earned the right to be able to see what that looks like and a lot of stuff that our defence looks like going back a bunch of years is from the brains of Joshua Bell, myself, and everybody else included. How we operate I don\u2019t think is going to change \u2014 the recipe is probably the same, but the ingredients might look a little bit different, have a little different flavour to it, so I\u2019m excited to see that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mace and Bell have spent over a decade together and won at least one Grey Cup in each stop along the way. They won a championship together as players with the Calgary Stampeders in 2014, as coaches in Calgary in 2018, coaches with the Toronto Argonauts in 2022, and coaches with the Roughriders in 2025.<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan\u2019s defence was a big part of why the team was able to knock off the Montreal Alouettes at Princess Auto Stadium in November. Davis Alexander was intercepted three times, while Tevaughn Campbell stripped Shea Patterson on a potential game-tying touchdown plunge in the late stages of the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

On the season, the Roughriders ranked third in offensive points allowed, second in net yards allowed, first in rushing yards allowed, third in sacks, third in takeaways, and fifth in yards allowed per play.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Bell\u2019s) done an incredible job through his entire coaching career. I\u2019ve always thought of him as one of the top coaches at his position group. How we operate, and how we\u2019ve operated for quite a few years together, it\u2019s a collaborative effort. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to change at all,\u201d said Mace. \u201cWe\u2019re fortunate as ever to have him stay in the building and be able to do that with us. Truthfully, I know it was important for him as well, so extremely excited for his opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given Saskatchewan\u2019s success and the quality of the team\u2019s assistants like Bell and offensive coordinator Marc Mueller, it would be understandable if other teams looked to Riderville for a future head coach. Though he doesn\u2019t look forward to losing anyone, Mace wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see some of his colleagues become head coaches in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully they\u2019re with the Riders as long as (GM Jeremy O\u2019Day) and I are with the Riders, that\u2019d be a perfect world, but certainly both of those guys are tremendous, tremendous football coaches, great leaders of men,\u201d said Mace.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty dang certain that they\u2019ll be having their own teams at some point of time, but it\u2019s gotta be the right situation for them, so the fact that they want to stay and be a part of what we\u2019re doing and continue to do, super grateful. I love those guys like I do all everybody else in the organization, but tremendous coaches with bright futures, no doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the native of Port Moody, B.C. no longer serving as his own defensive coordinator, Mace is looking forward to having a little more time on his plate. He\u2019s planning to invest more energy with the offence while also having more freedom to pursue studying situational football.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it depends on how you\u2019re going to allocate the time. The number one thing I\u2019m most excited about is spending more time in the offensive meeting rooms and being able to share some more time with not only those coaches in meeting room environments, but certainly the players. I never had the opportunity to cross-train in my coaching career and being on the other side of the ball, so I\u2019m excited about some of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart\u2019s not going to stray too far from where from it\u2019s been, and it\u2019ll allow me a lot more time as well just to look at different situations. I think situational football, watching more and more games outside the allotted that I usually do, certainly I think can help. From a team perspective, allow me to have some more time to look at some more things that I\u2019d like that I don\u2019t have the time to do, but certainly now I\u2019ll have that time. I\u2019m excited for some new things, but ultimately, we know our recipe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. Josh Bell was recently promoted to the role of defensive coordinator with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,49,48,7028,521,522,520,1172,179437,60449,55626,527,130318,10599,45083,55574,24373,82],"class_list":["post-430616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-coach","tag-coordinator","tag-corey-mace","tag-defensive","tag-football","tag-josh-bell","tag-regina","tag-riders","tag-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430616","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=430616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}