Trevor Harris<\/a>, the 2025 Grey Cup MVP, will start for Saskatchewan. His opposite number will be Jake Maier, who started two games with Saskatchewan last year before signing with Ottawa as a free agent in February.<\/p>\nTommy Stevens, in his second season as the Roughriders\u2019 short-yardage quarterback, rushed for two touchdowns in the 2025 league final.<\/p>\n
McLeod Bethel-Thompson, who was Davis Alexander\u2019s backup in Montreal for a considerable portion of last season, signed with Ottawa on June 23.<\/p>\n
Harris and Bethel-Thompson were teammates with the United Football League\u2019s Sacramento Mountain Lions in 2011. (The team\u2019s roster also included running back John David Washington \u2014 whose father is Hollywood legend Denzel Washington.)<\/p>\n
Maier won his first start as a Roughrider, helping the team defeat the B.C. Lions 37-18 on June 28, 2025 at Mosaic Stadium. That was the one game Harris missed due to injury last season. Maier also got the start on Oct. 17 in Winnipeg while Harris was being rested for the post-season.<\/p>\n
\u201cJake\u2019s a very good quarterback,\u201d Harris said. \u201cA lot of times when you watch film, he\u2019s getting the ball to the right spot at the right time and he\u2019s very accurate.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a guy who has been slept on his whole career. Things didn\u2019t go quite as well as he wanted to in Calgary, but I thought he learned and grew and developed a lot here last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got a bright future ahead but hopefully this Friday it\u2019s pretty glum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s game will mark the 11th time two quarterbacks who spent the previous season with Saskatchewan have started against one another in a contest involving the Roughriders:<\/p>\n
Sept. 8, 1961: Saskatchewan (starting quarterback: Bob Ptacek) at Montreal (Don Allard).<\/p>\n
Sept. 2, 1990: Saskatchewan (Kent Austin) vs. Winnipeg (Tom Burgess).<\/p>\n
Sept. 23, 1990: Saskatchewan (Austin) at Winnipeg (Burgess).<\/p>\n
Sept. 5, 2004: Saskatchewan (Henry Burris) vs. Winnipeg (Kevin Glenn).<\/p>\n
Sept. 12, 2004: Saskatchewan (Burris) at Winnipeg (Glenn).<\/p>\n
July 23, 2005: Saskatchewan (Nealon Greene) at Calgary (Burris).<\/p>\n
July 27, 2008: Saskatchewan (Darian Durant) vs. Toronto (Kerry Joseph).<\/p>\n
Sept. 12, 2010: Saskatchewan (Durant) at Winnipeg (Steven Jyles).<\/p>\n
Aug. 7, 2014: Saskatchewan (Durant) vs. Winnipeg (Drew Willy).<\/p>\n
Sept. 7, 2014: Saskatchewan (Durant) at Winnipeg (Willy).<\/p>\n
July 3, 2026: Saskatchewan (Harris) at Ottawa (Maier).<\/p>\n
HERE\u2019S TO SOME JAZZ!<\/p>\n
Corey Mace is hoping to orchestrate more enthusiasm \u2014 a situation he has rarely faced since becoming the Roughriders\u2019 Head Coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to see more, for lack of a better term, jazz hands,\u201d Mace said after Tuesday\u2019s practice at Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n
He is hoping for \u201cmore enthusiasm about the guys celebrating each other\u2019s success \u2026 just some more juice. I felt like we were lacking that last week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mace was referencing Friday\u2019s 40-34 CFL loss to the Toronto Argonauts at Mosaic Stadium \u2014 a result that left the defending Grey Cup champions with a 2-1 record.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know we\u2019ve got great players,\u201d Mace said. \u201cWe know we can be a great team.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust enjoy, man. Have some fun out there. I thought we were kind of reeling on that last week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ideally, that will prove to be an aberration for a Roughriders team that hopes to regain its winning ways.<\/p>\n
Each game, each practice, is an opportunity for the team to evolve and, along the way, for players \u2014 especially those who are new to the team \u2014 to find a voice and establish a presence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my honest opinion, I feel like there\u2019s a few guys who just naturally have it,\u201d Mace said. \u201cSome guys need to be pushed into those roles to get the fire started.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this team this year, some guys are having to be thrust into those roles and are more than capable of doing it but, by nature, it\u2019s more a case of, \u2018I prove it by how I play.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cool thing is that we talk about these things. The last couple of days at practice, we\u2019re seeing it, so it\u2019s excellent.\u201d<\/p>\n
INJURY UPDATE<\/p>\n
There is encouraging news on the receiver front.<\/p>\n
Dhel Duncan-Busby, who missed last week\u2019s game with a shoulder injury, was a full participant in Tuesday\u2019s practice. He had not practised on Monday.<\/p>\n
Samuel Emilus (ankle), Kian Schaffer-Baker (oblique) and Jaylen Johnson (shoulder) were all limited participants on Tuesday after not practising the previous day.<\/p>\n
Dylan Djete, whom the Roughriders selected in the second round of the 2026 CFL Canadian Draft, was a limited participant on Monday and Tuesday. He has yet to play this season due to a quadriceps injury.<\/p>\n
Running back A.J. Ouellette has also been a limited participant in practice this week. He missed the Toronto game with an ankle injury.<\/p>\n
For the complete injury report, CLICK HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fast-approaching CFL game between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Ottawa REDBLACKS will double as an unofficial 2025 Grey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-772484","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\/772484","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=772484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}