The Saskatchewan Roughriders are 8-1 for just the second time ever.<\/p>\n
In 2013, the Green and White got off to a similar start before going on to win the Grey Cup. On Saturday, in what was hyped up as a \u201cpotential Grey Cup preview,\u201d the Roughriders beat the visiting Hamilton Tiger-Cats 29-9 in Week 11 of the CFL season<\/a> in front of a sold-out crowd at Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n Here are 10 takeaways from the performance:<\/p>\n 10 Thoughts<\/p>\n 1. Based on the hype leading up to Saturday\u2019s game, it was going to be hard for the two division-leading teams to live up to the expectations in what many dubbed a \u201cGrey Cup preview.\u201d<\/a> And in the end, the Roughriders overcame a slow start and put together an overall solid offensive performance while Saskatchewan\u2019s defence played remarkably well against the league\u2019s highest-scoring offence. Two good teams went head-to-head, but the better team took over.<\/p>\n 2. A lot of the hype was due to the play of the two quarterbacks after their strong starts to the season. However, it was a tough start for the Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris on Saturday as Tiger-Cats defensive back Jonathan Moxey dropped what should have been an interception on the first pass of the game. On Saskatchewan\u2019s second drive, Harris was intercepted on his third throw of the game.<\/p>\n 3. After that, Harris settled in just fine over the next few drives and ended the night with 307 yards and three touchdowns. As many have said, Harris is playing the best football of his lengthy career right now.<\/p>\n 4. On the other side, Tiger-Cats QB Bo Levi Mitchell, who had an outstanding 21 touchdowns to just three interceptions entering the game, threw two interceptions in the third quarter and ended the night with just 201 passing yards. The Roughriders defensive line also made it tough on Mitchell with six sacks. \u201cStymied\u201d would be a good word to describe the defensive performance.<\/p>\n 5. The atmosphere was great at the sold-out Mosaic Stadium for the game, which was dubbed \u201cFamily Day\u201d with several kids being involved in the game-day production. And there was a special moment during the pre-game player introductions as T.J. Harris, Trevor\u2019s oldest son, announced the offensive introductions and capped it off with: \u201cAt quarterback, MY DAD, Trevor Harris.\u201d It was a goosebump-inducing moment not only for those in attendance but also for the 39-year-old dad, who got teary-eyed in the moment and again after the game when I asked him about it during his media scrum.<\/p>\n 6. Dohnte Meyers has turned into an elite deep threat as was evidenced by his 58-yard touchdown in the second quarter as he made a nifty inside-out double move on Moxey to find himself wide open downfield. Harris found him easily and Meyers secured his team-leading fifth touchdown of the season. To think he was battling for a starting spot in training camp is hard to fathom considering what he\u2019s done this year.<\/p>\n 7. With wind gusts reaching 45 kilometres per hour, Roughriders kicker Brett Lauther had to deal with both sides of it. Without making excuses for Lauther, who has not had his best season so far, he missed a 28-yard field goal wide right into the wind in the first quarter before a wind-aided 59-yard field goal to end the first half. Lauther then missed a 42-yarder into the wind in the third quarter. There wasn\u2019t much excuse for a 46-yard miss off the left upright with the wind in the fourth. I\u2019ve said the team needs to continue to stick with Lauther, but I have to wonder if competition won\u2019t be brought in at some point.<\/p>\n 8. The wind also affected the punting and return game. Not only were punts sailing more than 70 yards with the wind on Saturday, but Roughriders returner Drae McCray misread a punt that resulted in a fumble deep in his own territory. Saskatchewan\u2019s defence bailed him out though as Rolan Milligan Jr. intercepted Mitchell on the one-yard line moments later. Harris then drove the field for a touchdown, which proved to be one of the biggest drives of the game. Harris said it was arguably the biggest drive of the season<\/a>.<\/p>\n 9. On any other team, Caleb Sanders would be a starting defensive tackle. However, in Saskatchewan, he\u2019s playing behind two all-stars in Micah Johnson and Mike Rose. Sanders doesn\u2019t get a lot of fanfare, but he made his mark on Saturday with a nine-yard sack in the second quarter. Any time he\u2019s been on the field, Sanders finds a way to be noticed.<\/p>\n 10. With an 8-1 record, the Roughriders have clearly proven they\u2019re an elite team in the CFL. However, an even more intriguing matchup awaits next week as Saskatchewan will get a second chance at Calgary (6-3) after losing to the Stampeders 24-10 earlier this season. If Saskatchewan-Hamilton was a potential Grey Cup preview, Saskatchewan-Calgary in Week 12 is no doubt a West Final preview.<\/p>\n tshire@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n The Regina Leader-Post has created an\u00a0Afternoon Headlines\u00a0newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day.\u00a0Click here<\/a> to subscribe. <\/p>\n With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark leaderpost.com<\/a> and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here<\/a> to subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saskatchewan Roughriders are 8-1 for just the second time ever. In 2013, the Green and White got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[42019,49,48,521,522,520,11441,15655,46245,46243,46244,4400,82,11135],"class_list":["post-75247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-bo-levi-mitchell","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-defensive-lineman","tag-hamilton-tiger-cats","tag-jonathan-moxey","tag-mosaic-stadium","tag-rolan-milligan","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-sports","tag-trevor-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75247","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=75247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}