{"id":795172,"date":"2026-07-11T14:24:46","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T14:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795172\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T14:24:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T14:24:46","slug":"making-plays-on-the-ball-riders-look-to-improve-turnover-totals-against-ti-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795172\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Making plays on the ball\u2019: Riders look to improve turnover totals against Ti-Cats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Woods<\/a> gets to have some bragging rights, but the Saskatchewan Roughriders linebacker is hoping it doesn\u2019t last much longer.<\/p>\n

Heading into the team\u2019s Week 6 game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats<\/a>, Woods is the only player on the team with an interception, despite opportunities being there for his defensive teammates.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to encourage them. It shouldn\u2019t be me first \u2014 I shouldn\u2019t be leading us in picks. We have so many playmakers too, so I think when they start to get some, it\u2019s going to be a storm of them and I can\u2019t wait,\u201d Woods said.<\/p>\n

Defensive back Marcus Sayles<\/a> admitted it does provide some motivation for the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can\u2019t be the only one with one. Once we get one, they are going to start coming, so they are on the way,\u201d Sayles said.<\/p>\n

The one interception for the Riders as a unit is tied for the fewest in the CFL with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. But turnovers on the whole have been hard to come by. They have one forced fumble (tied for second-fewest) and one turnover on downs. The three total turnovers recorded are the fewest in the CFL.<\/p>\n

The takeaways this season are a far cry from the success the team experienced in 2025. Last season, the Riders finished with 24 interceptions (second-most in the CFL), 15 forced fumbles (also second-most) and their 41 total turnovers were third-most in the entire CFL.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just making plays on the ball. We just haven\u2019t been touching it and that\u2019s an all-12 kind of thing,\u201d said Riders head coach Corey Mace<\/a>. \u201cYour front-end is tied to your back-end. I don\u2019t think we have been playing terrible defence, it\u2019s just waiting on our opportunities, but sometimes you have to go force them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not so much just the interceptions; we\u2019ve had a multitude of plays where somebody on the other team is carrying the ball and we can certainly do a better job trying to remove the ball from the ball carrier as well and forcing fumbles,\u201d Mace stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust constantly looking at things and how we can get better, but certainly the turnover department is one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan may get a chance to improve on those numbers in Sunday\u2019s game, as the Ti-Cats will be without all-star quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell. The pivot suffered a serious ankle injury in their last game against Winnipeg, possibly ending his 2026 season.<\/p>\n

In his place, former Riders quarterback Jake Dolegala will get the start. Dolegala was with the Riders from 2022-23 before bouncing around the CFL with stints with the B.C. Lions and Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2024 and has been with Hamilton since 2025.<\/p>\n

Woods spent a lot of the 2024 season with Dolegala in B.C. before the quarterback was released in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood guy. He brings good energy. He\u2019s a tall quarterback so he can see over the (offensive and defensive) line. He has a strong arm, can whip it. It will be exciting to play him,\u201d Woods said.<\/p>\n

The Riders will have running back A.J. Ouellette<\/a> back for the showdown. He has missed the past two games due to an ankle injury.<\/a><\/p>\n

Kickoff for the game is set for 5 p.m. on Sunday at Mosaic Stadium. The Green Zone pregame show begins at 3 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Woods gets to have some bragging rights, but the Saskatchewan Roughriders linebacker is hoping it doesn\u2019t last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-795172","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\/795172","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=795172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}