Members of the Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 football operations department operate at a different level.<\/p>\n
That can be interpreted two ways.<\/p>\n
WAY: Whereas many Roughriders\u2019 employees are based in the fourth-floor business office at Mosaic Stadium, the folks in football ops are stationed in closer proximity to the locker room and meeting areas.<\/p>\n
ANOTHER WAY: They are exceptional at their jobs \u2014\u00a0as evidenced by the Roughriders\u2019 Grey Cup championship season of 2025.<\/p>\n
Since Nov. 16, the reigning CFL champions have been recognized in myriad ways.<\/p>\n
Four months have elapsed since the Roughriders\u2019 25-17 Grey Cup victory over the Montreal Alouettes and the accolades are still rolling in.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, for example, the Roughriders were announced as one of three finalists for the Ted Goveia Football Operations Award.<\/p>\n
The Calgary Stampeders and Hamilton Tiger-Cats are also nominated for the inaugural award, which recognizes excellence in scouting, player identification, roster construction and leadership.<\/p>\n
The winner is to be announced on Thursday in Edmonton during the league\u2019s Coach of the Year celebration. Saskatchewan\u2019s Corey Mace and Montreal\u2019s Jason Maas are the finalists for the coaching honour.<\/p>\n
Much has been made of Mace\u2019s contributions \u2014\u00a0and rightfully so \u2014\u00a0but he is always quick to deflect the credit to his colleagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach of the Year,\u201d in Mace\u2019s appraisal, is self-effacing Offensive Line Coach Edwin Harrison, who would rather dispense with the praise. That is one reason why Mace persists in hyping the issue.<\/p>\n
The over-riding factor, though, is merit.<\/p>\n
Harrison has worked wonders with an offensive line that has been ravaged by injuries during both his seasons as a Roughrider.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Saskatchewan started 12 different offensive linemen. That number decreased slightly, by one, in 2025.<\/p>\n
The latter total does not include Sean McEwen, who signed with Saskatchewan as a free agent in February of 2025. The three-time All-CFL centre suffered a season-ending knee injury early in training camp.<\/p>\n
Despite encountering injury-related instability throughout each of the past two seasons, Saskatchewan has staged back-to-back home playoff games.<\/p>\n
The strength up front was such that quarterback Trevor Harris was not sacked in the 2025 Western Final or the Grey Cup.<\/p>\n
The strength of the front office was also evident.<\/p>\n
Jeremy O\u2019Day (Vice-President of Football Operations and General Manager), Kyle Carson (Assistant GM\/Director of Player Personnel), Paul Jones (Assistant GM) and Larry Dean (Assistant Director of Player Personnel) have provided reinforcements on top of reinforcements.<\/p>\n
As another example, consider the receiving corps.<\/p>\n
The Roughriders fielded 11 different first-unit pass-catchers in 2024 and 10 last year.<\/p>\n
Two sets of starters in one championship season!<\/p>\n
That is a testament to the team\u2019s depth, which would not be possible without the efforts of O\u2019Day and associates \u2014\u00a0a group that also receives integral contributions from Jordan Greenly (Director, Football Operations).<\/p>\n
Greenly routinely handles a blizzard of logistical details without even blinking.<\/p>\n
His office is a first down away from the quarters of Carson, who is widely regarded as the CFL\u2019s next great GM.<\/p>\n
When I strolled past Carson\u2019s workspace last week, he was holding a telephone in one hand and a remote control in the other.<\/p>\n
There he was, watching film and touching base at the same time. Multi-tasking, Kyle style.<\/p>\n
Not far away, Dean\u2019s office door was closed. He was on another scouting mission.<\/p>\n
As for Jones, his office is a mere 2,700 kilometres away \u2014\u00a0in the Alabama community of Grand Bay.<\/p>\n
A well-established player-personnel genius, Jones has helped to build Grey Cup-winning teams with Winnipeg (1988, 1990), Edmonton (2003, 2005, 2015) and Saskatchewan (2025).<\/p>\n
Similarly, Goveia was an important, oft-unsung contributor to two championship teams in Winnipeg. He was the Assistant GM and Director of Player Personnel when the Blue Bombers won it all in 2019 and 2021.<\/p>\n
Goveia became a first-time Grey Cup champion in 2012, as the Toronto Argonauts\u2019 Director of Canadian Scouting. That Argos team also included a first-year CFL quarterback named Trevor Harris.<\/p>\n
All things considered, Goveia devoted 30-plus years to the great game of Canadian football \u2014\u00a0coaching or scouting in the college and professional ranks.<\/p>\n
His efforts were typically behind the scenes. It wasn\u2019t until Dec. 5, 2024 when he was named a general manager.<\/p>\n
Sadly, Goveia\u2019s time in the Tiger-Cats\u2019 GM\u2019s chair wouldn\u2019t even last a year. He died of cancer on Sept. 12.<\/p>\n
Fittingly, the CFL has established an award to honour his contributions and his good name.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn keeping with Goveia\u2019s philosophy that teams are built collectively, the award will be presented to a group rather than an individual,\u201d read a portion of a media release issued Thursday by the CFL.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoveia did not believe in sole responsibility in player acquisition,\u201d the release continued, \u201cpreferring to acknowledge the many contributions needed to identify, scout and sign new additions.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that spirit, Goveia would undoubtedly be uncomfortable with seeing his name attached to a group award.<\/p>\n
A comparable mindset compels O\u2019Day to invariably deflect the praise and accentuate the collective efforts.<\/p>\n
As a four-time Grey Cup champion, he knows of what he speaks.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 football operations department operate at a different level. That can be interpreted two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-550284","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\/550284","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=550284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}