a dominant performance \u2014 winning 38-7 <\/a>to improve to 4-1 on the season.\u00a0<\/p>\nHere are the top 10 takeaways from the game:\u00a0<\/p>\n
10 Thoughts<\/p>\n
That was the\u00a0most\u00a0lopsided tie football game for much of the first half as Saskatchewan generated\u00a0116 yards\u00a0of net offence compared to just 17 yards by Hamilton at one point\u00a0\u2014 yet it was still tied.\u00a0We\u2019ll\u00a0get to the\u00a0field\u00a0goal decisions below,\u00a0but there really\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0much doubt who was going to win that football game after watching the first few drives of the game.\u00a0Then when Trevor Harris found Samuel Emilus for a touchdown near the end of the first half, it almost left no doubt even though the score was still close. The dominant four quarter by Saskatchewan was just the cherry on top.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While it\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0necessarily an offensive masterpiece on Sunday, with Harris throwing for 211 yards and A.J. Ouellette running for 83 yards, Saskatchewan\u2019s\u00a0defence\u00a0put together its best performance of the season. Safety Jaxon Ford made another third-down\u00a0stop,\u00a0cornerback Marcus Sayles scooped up a loose fumble and nearly scored a touchdown while\u00a0linebacker Josh\u00a0Woods did score a touchdown on a 107-yard pick six. The Roughriders\u00a0defence\u00a0knew they needed more turnovers after such a low total through the first four games and they made up for the lack of early production on Sunday.<\/p>\n
While it was a convincing win, there was a special\u00a0teams\u00a0hiccup that needs addressing\u00a0as rookie kicker Alex Hale\u00a0missed\u00a0a\u00a035-yard\u00a0field goal in the first quarter.\u00a0Saskatchewan\u2019s next two drives stalled out around the 40-yard line and instead of kicking field goals of around 48 yards, the Roughriders\u00a0elected\u00a0to punt it away. Granted, Hamilton\u2019s offence\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0doing much with Jake Dolegala, but you need to have the confidence to roll out your kicker for anything under 50 yards.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a little early to make a kicking change but if Hale, who is 10 of 13 on the season,\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0earn the trust back soon, the Roughriders will be forced to switch it up. He will have a shorter leash than what Brett Lauther had last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just as Mathew Sexton was starting to make the most of his opportunity,\u00a0a serious leg injury\u00a0is going to\u00a0sideline him for the\u00a0foreseeable future. After a 101-yard punt return touchdown in his CFL debut last week against Ottawa, Sexton added\u00a0a pair of nice punt returns on Sunday before going down with a right leg injury early on the second half kickoff.\u00a0Injuries are the worst part of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s\u00a0not unlike what we saw last week as Tiger-Cats quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell went down with a serious ankle injury, which required surgery. That led to former Rider Jake Dolegala getting his first start of the season on Sunday against his former team.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0not like the moment was too big for\u00a0Dolegala, nor did he look overwhelmed, but he certainly\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0look great. Saskatchewan\u2019s\u00a0defence\u00a0also came to play and made it tough on him all night.\u00a0Plus\u00a0when\u00a0receivers\u00a0like Kenny Lawler are fumbling, it\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0help a quarterbacks\u2019\u00a0cause.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As mentioned Saskatchewan\u2019s defence came to play and some of the credit has to go to the play calling. For the most part, the Roughriders had an effective pass rush by only sending a four-man\u00a0rush. There weren\u2019t a lot of blitzes on Sunday, which would have done one of two things: make Dolegala\u2019s life even worse or\u00a0opened\u00a0things up for him down field. The four-man front, led by James Vaughters with a pair of sacks, were already making it hard on him which allowed Saskatchewan\u2019s linebackers and defensive backs to shut down anything that came their way. Solid play calling and execution. Sometimes you\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0need to try to do more than\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There was a lot of talk about Dolegala facing his former team leading into the game and the familiarity Saskatchewan\u2019s\u00a0defence\u00a0would have with him. However, looking deeper at the depth chart, this was pre-Corey Mace when the team was coached by Craig Dickenson. The only players\u00a0remaining\u00a0from the 2023\u00a0defence\u00a0are\u00a0Rolan Milligan Jr., Nelson Lokombo, Jaxon Ford, Jayden Dalke, Lake Korte-Moore\u00a0and Caleb Sanders.\u00a0Milligan,\u00a0Lokombo\u00a0and Korte-Moore are out with injury, while Ford, Dalke and Sanders\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0full-time starters that season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking of\u00a0Ford, he continues to make the most of his\u00a0opportunity. Starting at safety for the injured\u00a0Lokombo, Ford made an outstanding tackle early in the third quarter as he stuffed a quarterback sneak attempt by the Tiger-Cats forcing a turnover on downs, which was on the heels of a nearly identical stop last week against Ottawa. No slight to\u00a0Lokombo\u00a0but it will be hard to\u00a0take Ford out of the starting lineup when Lokombo returns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tommy Stevens\u00a0said he\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0going to choose his own nickname, but I think referring to him as a \u201cshort-yardage specialist\u201d is a bit misleading considering what\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0done along the ground recently. It\u2019s a bit of a repeat thought from last week\u2019s 10 Thoughts <\/a>but in Saskatchewan\u2019s last two victories, Stevens closed out both wins by dominating along the ground, including rushing for 40 yards on two plays \u2014 when everyone\u00a0knew\u00a0he was going to run. It\u2019s worth another shoutout. He\u2019s football\u2019s version of an elite closer in baseball and unlike Saskatchewan\u2019s kicking situation, the Roughriders have the utmost confidence to roll Stevens out at any given time. Quite a luxury for an offensive coordinator.<\/p>\nAfter having a bye in Week 1, the Roughriders are now into their second bye week of the season before a first-place showdown against the Edmonton Elks, who are also 4-1, on July 23. I certainly didn\u2019t have the Elks at 4-1 and B.C. Lions at 1-3 at this point in the season. Those two teams will face each other on Thursday while the Roughriders watch on. Including the game against Edmonton, which is the first half of a home-and-home series,\u00a0Saskatchewan will play eight games in a row before another bye in Week 16.\u00a0The team will then\u00a0finish with\u00a0five games before the playoffs.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a bit of a tough\u00a0schedule\u00a0but if they can keep stacking up wins, they very well might have a chance to rest some players down the stretch, like they did last year. We all know how that ended.\u00a0<\/p>\n
tshire@postmedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took a little bit for the Saskatchewan Roughriders to gain momentum, but once they\u00a0did,\u00a0there was no looking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[281531,49,48,521,522,276177,276912,276178,158032,520,276176,82],"class_list":["post-799095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-281531","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-category-cfl","tag-category-football","tag-category-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-category-sports","tag-cfl","tag-leader-post","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799095","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=799095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}