Trevor Harris fielded an age-old question.<\/p>\n
During Friday\u2019s pre-game yak session with the media<\/a>, the Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 starting quarterback was asked for his thoughts on his age (40) routinely being attached to his good name in stories that are broadcast or written.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like it has been like this the whole time,\u201d he said leading up to Saturday\u2019s regular-season opener against the B.C. Lions (5 p.m., Mosaic Stadium).<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cEvery year, it\u2019s like, \u2018Well, Trevor\u2019s another year older and he\u2019s probably going to fall off.\u2019 I\u2019ve been preparing for this stage of my career for the last 10, 15 years.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve told people over the last three, four or five years that age will not be what makes me decline. It won\u2019t be a physical decline. It\u2019ll be when I want to be done. That\u2019s what I hope.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe someday they\u2019ll believe me, but I\u2019m not holding my breath on that. Maybe Rob\u2019s the only guy who believes me.\u201d<\/p>\n This true believer was quick to concur that 40 is not old \u2014 unlike (gulp) 62.<\/p>\n I mean, let\u2019s be real here. My career is 19 days older than Trevor Harris.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a disclaimer here, there\u2019s the movie 300,\u201d he hastened to add. \u201cThe elite Spartan warriors served until they were 60, so 40\u2019s not that old. Or one year younger than then-Ottawa teammate Henry Burris was in 2016 when he quarterbacked the REDBLACKS to a 39-33 overtime victory over the Calgary Stampeders in the 104th Grey Cup Game. Smilin\u2019 Hank completed 35 of 46 passes for 461 yards and two TDs \u2014 including the game-winner to Ernest Jackson \u2014 and ran for two more scores in a fittingly fantastic farewell performance.<\/p>\n The previous year, at 40, Burris had been named the CFL\u2019s Most Outstanding Player.<\/p>\n Harris, at 39, earned Grey Cup MVP honours in 2025 after setting a championship-game completion-percentage record (85.2) in the Roughriders\u2019 25-17 victory over the Montreal Alouettes.<\/p>\n A supremely conditioned athlete, Harris has proven time and again that age is not a factor.<\/p>\n Consider, too, that he did not become a full-time starter until 2015, when he was 29. Most 40-year-olds have considerably more clicks on the odometer.<\/p>\n In any event, Harris is the first 40-year-old quarterback to begin a season with the Roughriders. Ron Lancaster was 39 when Saskatchewan opened the 1978 season. He turned 40 just 15 days before his final game.<\/p>\n The only other 40-something quarterback in Roughriders history is Kerry Joseph, who had just turned 41 when his second stint in green and white began on Oct. 9, 2014.<\/p>\n Joseph is best remembered for a signature season (2007) in which he was the league\u2019s Most Outstanding Player and the victorious quarterback in the 95th Grey Cup Game.<\/p>\n Harris, Lancaster, Joseph, Kent Austin and Darian Durant are the five Grey Cup-winning starting quarterbacks in Roughriders history.<\/p>\n Riders royalty, across the board.<\/p>\n Any doubt about whether Harris would one day be enshrined in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame was removed when he completed 23 of 27 passes in the 2025 Grey Cup Game.<\/p>\n His legacy secured, he could have retired in storybook fashion after that game, but fans\u2019 pleas for \u201cone more year!\u201d were clearly heard \u2014 not that he was inclined to step away from the game, anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cI get to play football,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThat\u2019s something I think has been one of my superpowers. I just like to play ball. I like to be the quarterback. I like to lead and I like to be part of something bigger than myself. That\u2019s a candle that burns brightly, no matter what. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s one that dwindles down until there\u2019s nothing left.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no more evidence of that than last year, when we won the Grey Cup. It didn\u2019t really change how I felt about my career up to this point. I just like to play ball. I think (last year) just verified what I\u2019ve always known about myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Harris is poised to become only the second 40-year-old quarterback to participate in a Roughriders season opener.<\/p>\n Damon Allen was six weeks shy of his 41st birthday when he called signals for the host Toronto Argonauts against Saskatchewan on June 15, 2004. He capped that season by guiding Toronto to a title and being named the Grey Cup MVP.<\/p>\n Two years later, at 42, Allen was recognized as the league\u2019s Most Outstanding Player.<\/p>\n BAND OF BROTHERS<\/p>\n Harris has again conceptualized, manufactured and distributed message-driven wristbands to his teammates and the coaching staff.<\/p>\n In 2024, it was Don\u2019t Flinch.<\/p>\n Last year, prophetically, Harris introduced SR Time. (Uttered quickly, it sounds like It\u2019s Our Time.)<\/p>\n This time around, the message is twofold: (1) Check Ball; (2) R Factor. Head Coach Corey Mace was the influence behind Check Ball, which also resonates with Harris.<\/p>\n \u201cCheck Ball is kind of a basketball term,\u201d Mace said. \u201cNo matter what (the circumstances), we don\u2019t care. Check the ball. Let\u2019s go play.\u201d<\/p>\n R Factor was coined by Harris.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an event, a response and an outcome,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe event and outcome are things you don\u2019t control, but you do control how you respond.<\/p>\n \u201cBasically, what I told the team (on Friday) is that we\u2019re not chasing last year. We\u2019re chasing a standard we\u2019ve set and we\u2019re trying to raise that. After what happened last year, with the standard we set, how are we going to respond to that? The response is, \u2018We\u2019re going to raise the standard.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve all moved on. We probably moved on quicker than we should have, to be honest, from the Grey Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s all about moving up.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been said that life is 10 per cent what happens to you and 90 per cent how you deal with it,\u201d Harris continued. \u201cHow the season goes is going to be how we respond.\u201d<\/p>\n And how about the response to the wristbands?<\/p>\n Harris really started something with Don\u2019t Flinch.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool,\u201d he said. \u201cHopefully whoever the quarterback is after me will continue the tradition of doing this with the head coach. Hopefully we\u2019ve started something.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were building something special in the first year (under Mace). Last year, it was SR Time. I think people have tried to steal that saying and say it\u2019s someone else\u2019s, when it was really ours.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve embodied what we have on this wristband, so I think we\u2019re going to be people who respond this year. I think we\u2019re going to just say, \u2018Line up and play. Spot the ball. It doesn\u2019t matter (what the situation is).\u2019 That\u2019s just going to be who we are and what we embody.\u201d<\/p>\n PASSING FANCY<\/p>\n Week 2 of the 2026 season has been a showcase for quarterbacks \u2014 and there\u2019s more to come.<\/p>\n On Thursday, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats\u2019 Bo Levi Mitchell (three TD passes, 158.7 efficiency rating) and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers\u2019 Zach Collaros (421 passing yards, 126.0) displayed their Hall of Fame-calibre skills.<\/p>\n On Friday night, Toronto\u2019s Chad Kelly (445 yards, three TDs) and Montreal\u2019s Davis Alexander (441 yards, two TDs) were the featured performers in a classic CFL shootout.<\/p>\n Today, we will be treated to offences led by Trevor Harris and Nathan Rourke.<\/p>\n BANE ON A PLANE<\/p>\n Talk about Bane\u2019s World!<\/p>\n Shawn Bane Jr., a Roughrider from 2023 to 2025, has signed with the Paris Lights of the American Football League of Europe.<\/p>\n While wearing No. 15 for the Roughriders, Bane Jr. amassed a league-best 93 receptions for 1,104 yards with Saskatchewan in 2023. The following year, he caught three touchdown passes in a season-opening victory over Edmonton.<\/p>\n In so doing, Bane Jr. tied a team record for TD receptions in a game. The feat had previously been accomplished by Hugh Campbell (five times), Joey Walters (twice), Curtis Marsh (twice), Jack Hill, Bob Renn, Tom Campana, Rhett Dawson, Ray Elgaard, Jeff Fairholm, Don Narcisse, Andy Fantuz, Weston Dressler and Samuel Emilus.<\/p>\n ROLL CREDITS \u2026<\/p>\n \u2022 Nice people who deserve a plug: Val Livingstone, Leah Spafford, Ryan McDonald, Raygan Johnson, Craig Reynolds, Desmond Evans<\/a>, Kelsey Clairmont, Jason Delesoy, Albert Awachie<\/a>, Sarah Oneschuk, James Letcher Jr.<\/a>, Shawn Bane Jr., Alex Hale<\/a>, Jermarcus Hardrick<\/a>, Payton Collins, Bill Wright, Bill Ursel, Kathleen Wall, Kalie Harris, Josh Robins, Evan McFeeters, Cindy Fuchs, Duncan Lamb, Dave Hanni, Dale Richter and Gerald Saul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trevor Harris fielded an age-old question. During Friday\u2019s pre-game yak session with the media, the Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 starting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-736125","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\/736125","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=736125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cMaybe I\u2019m just saying that because I\u2019m 40.\u201d<\/p>\n