Joshua Bell<\/a> understands the term better than most.<\/p>\nBell \u2014\u00a0the Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 Defensive Co-ordinator \u2014\u00a0majored in chemistry at Baylor University.<\/p>\n
Although test tubes, Bunsen burners and the periodic table may seem to be far removed from the gruelling gridiron game, a chemist\u2019s mindset can be immensely beneficial from a coaching perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout a doubt,\u201d Bell stated. \u201cIt has never changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe even talk about flowing like water, because everything has to go together. The chemistry of things has to be right.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a position coach, you never know what you need to be in that room for those guys to hear you and get the message, or to be their guy for them to reach their level of greatness.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially as a co-ordinator, it would be the same. You don\u2019t know what you need to be for your guys in certain moments, so it comes down to that \u2014\u00a0chemistry \u2014\u00a0and being what is needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t always be salty. Some days, you can\u2019t always be sweet. You need different compositions of different people and different makeups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are so many variables and factors that go into winning a game, winning a practice and even winning a rep, so that chemistry is always in football. It has never failed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Success is a signature for Bell, who in November celebrated a championship for the fifth time in his pro football career.<\/p>\n
As a defensive back, he was a member of two title-winning teams \u2014\u00a0the 2010 Green Bay Packers and 2014 Calgary Stampeders.<\/p>\n
He has since been a part of a Grey Cup champion as the Defensive Backs coach with Calgary (2018), the Toronto Argonauts (2022) and the Roughriders (2025).<\/p>\n
After two seasons as Saskatchewan\u2019s Defensive Backs Coach and Pass Game Co-ordinator, Bell was named the Defensive Co-ordinator on Jan. 9. Head Coach Corey Mace was the defensive play-caller for two seasons before handing the reins to Bell.<\/p>\n
Like Mace, Bell played on defence for Calgary before making a seamless transition into a coaching capacity with the Stampeders and continuing to thrive in other environs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is just the process that we\u2019ve always seen,\u201d Bell said. \u201cIt\u2019s just about continuing to learn and continuing to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ensuring that Bell continues to be a Roughrider was a priority for Mace.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany teams would want Joshua Bell to be their Defensive Co-ordinator and it\u2019s something that wasn\u2019t a secret for myself or Josh,\u201d Mace told reporters shortly after Bell, 41, was promoted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that we talked about and we 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<\/p>\n
What does that signify for Bell?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time to work,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s time to learn this. It\u2019s time to stand in this position. (Past experiences) have led to this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The objective is to maximize each moment, with three-plus months remaining before Bell will call his first play as a Defensive Co-ordinator during a regular-season game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t even looked that far ahead,\u201d he said, chuckling.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalling plays and being a Defensive Co-ordinator in a game is just a thing. It\u2019s like it\u2019s your turn to play on Madden, right? It\u2019s your turn to make all the calls and make a selection of what\u2019s going to be run on this play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s bigger (than one person). Maybe at a different stage of life, you think of it as, \u2018Me, me, me,\u2019 but going throughout our process, I know that there\u2019s a lot of things before it comes down to who pushes the button.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an honour, more than anything. It\u2019s a major honour to be the one to be able to make a call in the moment. You feel that you\u2019re trusted to be called on to do such a thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there are a lot of guys\u2019 hands in making those plays. I\u2019m just excited to be able to be the guy to pull the trigger but, more than anything, to be in that position you have to be one of the best teammates in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which brings us back to chemistry \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to learn about my coaches that I work with even more, because I want to make sure I know their minds a little bit and that we mesh minds so well that, on game day, we think almost the same way,\u201d Bell said in reference to coaching collaborators Travis Brown (Linebackers Coach, Run Game Co-ordinator), Micah Johnson (Defensive Line Coach) and Jordan Linnen (Defensive Backs Coach).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like where we Double Dutch thoughts at a certain time. You learn how to co-operate with each other through pre-snap tendencies. You learn to work so well in a rhythm, almost like an F1 team.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuys know when to talk to you in certain pockets, because they know when you\u2019re thinking at a peak and when not to disturb you. It\u2019s so cool.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been honoured to be in a position to help Corey play-call, so I\u2019m excited to kind of be in that cockpit now, working with my teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to do everything at the perfect time to get exactly what you want. That is the exhilarating part \u2014\u00a0the work that goes into being so well-oiled together that on game day it\u2019s so fluid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such excellence in execution helped Saskatchewan allow the fewest points (409) in the league during the 2025 regular season.<\/p>\n
The year before, the Roughriders were the CFL\u2019s runaway leader in turnover differential (plus-26) with Mace as the chief defensive strategist \u2014\u00a0a role that has now been bestowed upon Bell.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so excited to see myself (in that position), because you can always project or think what you would like to do,\u201d said Bell, who has been a teammate or coaching colleague of Mace\u2019s on three Grey Cup-winning teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven in the past couple of months, I\u2019ve had so many different thoughts and approaches to even calling a game. I\u2019m calling games as I\u2019m watching film, just giving myself that practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome days I\u2019m aggressive. Some days I\u2019m passive. I think you have feelings. You have thoughts. And then you go to the table again with your teammates and you say, \u2018I\u2019m feeling like this. What do you think?\u2019 Sometimes your guys say, \u2018No, coach \u2026 no!\u2019 Or they\u2019ll say, \u2018Yeah, let\u2019s go! I like that, too!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cOr, sometimes the practice will tell you something. You go in thinking, \u2018I want to be aggressive,\u2019 but it just didn\u2019t mesh well that week or we didn\u2019t get enough reps. It\u2019s this, this and this \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that the flavour is going to be a little different. The seasoning might be a little different between Corey and Joshua Bell, but throughout our Grey Cup wins together we\u2019ve learned that you usually call what your players can run and what they feel good about executing. You usually rely on them, regardless of what you want to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt usually comes down to, \u2018What can the guys grasp and what can they execute at a high level?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Want to talk about high-level pressure? How about having less time than it takes to type this paragraph to decide on a defensive play call between snaps?<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t time for indecisiveness, hesitation or second-guessing in the midst of a fast-flowing CFL game. But the pace, which can seem frenetic from an outsider\u2019s perspective, is second nature to those who are habitually immersed in a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat 20 seconds (between plays) is just something we\u2019ve been doing for a long time, since I was honoured to be a member of the B.C. Lions and the Calgary Stampeders and the Toronto Argonauts and, now, the Saskatchewan Roughriders,\u201d Bell said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been dealing with that same 20 seconds. No problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust trust your guys. Work as hard as you can during the week so you keep getting that 20 seconds over and over again, so by the time you get to the game day, that 20 seconds seems like an eternity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twenty years have elapsed \u2014 seemingly in no time \u2014\u00a0since Bell was excelling at Baylor University, both on the field and in the classroom.<\/p>\n
As a student-athlete in Waco, Texas, he developed an advanced comprehension of how chemistry and football can work in tandem. Similarities were noted during practices, meetings and games. Did the comparisons carry over into, say, a chemistry lab?<\/p>\n
\u201cNot so much,\u201d Bell said with a laugh. \u201cYou\u2019d better pay attention to what you\u2019re doing before some hydrochloric acid is streaming down your fingers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coaches at all tiers of sport strive to create an environment that fosters chemistry. Joshua Bell understands the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-529598","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\/529598","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=529598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}