the Saskatchewan Roughriders defeat the Ottawa REDBLACKS 42-20 on Friday at Mosaic Stadium.<\/a><\/p>\nHead Coach Corey Mace recognized a landmark performance by presenting one of the game balls to Harris \u2014 just the 12th player in Canadian professional football history to pass for 40,000 yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m usually not into the numbers thing, but when Mace did that after the game and said there have only been 12, for me to just brush it off would be rude,\u201d Harris said in response to my inevitable stats-related inquiry. \u201cIt\u2019s a big deal to Mace. For him to do that was awesome.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m truly grateful. God is good. I\u2019m thankful that Jesus has sent me on the path that I\u2019ve been on, with all the ups and downs and ebbs and flows.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to do that at the professional level is something that blows my mind, but I just try to stay focused on the small things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really thankful that I get to be the quarterback of this organization. Being able to don the green and white, I never, ever take it for granted.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know the history of this organization better than anybody. The fact that I get to be the quarterback here and that you know who I am is cool to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo join the 40K club is pretty cool. I think it just means maybe I\u2019m getting a little older, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
And better with the passage of time.<\/p>\n
Named the 2025 Grey Cup MVP at age 39, Harris is enjoying a scorching start to his 14th CFL season.<\/p>\n
With 19 touchdown passes, he is second in the league \u2014 two behind the Calgary Stampeders\u2019 Vernon Adams Jr. Calgary (4-5) has played one more game than Saskatchewan (6-2).<\/p>\n
If Harris throws at least one touchdown pass against the host Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 15, he will be third-fastest to hit 20 in Roughriders history.<\/p>\n
Kent Austin threw his 20th TD pass in his seventh game of the 1991 season. Tom Burgess (1989) and Darian Durant (2013) both reached 20 in eight games. Austin got there in nine games in 1992. Harris can match that pace.<\/p>\n
Austin and Harris are the only Roughriders quarterbacks to throw at least one TD pass in each of the first eight games of a season. Austin\u2019s TD-pass streak reached 13 games in 1992. Harris is at eight games \u2026 and counting.<\/p>\n
Harris already stands alone in this category. He is the only quarterback in Roughriders history to have thrown every one of the team\u2019s passes through eight games. Austin took it as far as seven \u2014 again, in 1992.<\/p>\n
Barring unfortunate circumstances, the statistical ascent will continue.<\/p>\n
Now at 40,352 career passing yards, Harris is 182 shy of tying Tracy Ham for 11th All-Time in the CFL. Another 1,003 yards will enable Harris to tie 10th-ranked Doug Flutie.<\/p>\n
Eighty-nine more completions will move Harris into a tie with Ron Lancaster for eighth in league history. The Little General registered 3,186 of his 3,384 career completions while wearing a Roughriders uniform.<\/p>\n
Virtually every day, Harris walks past a statue of Lancaster while entering Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n
Lancaster\u2019s grandson, Marc Mueller, is in his third season as the Roughriders\u2019 Offensive Co-ordinator. Very soon, Harris will have another link to the legendary No. 23.<\/p>\n
Until Friday, Lancaster was the only player to reach 40,000 career passing yards while wearing a Roughriders uniform at the time. He hit 40 grand on Sept. 28, 1975 against the visiting B.C. Lions.<\/p>\n
I was at that game. The Lions\u2019 leading rusher, by the way, was named Harris. Lou Harris, to be specific.<\/p>\n
Lancaster\u2019s last of 19 completions in that 1975 game put him over 40,000 \u2014 the highest total in league history at the time.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Trevor Harris\u2019s final completion was his 14th in a row. The only other Roughrider to reach that precise number in a game: Lancaster, on Sept. 18, 1977 versus Hamilton at Taylor Field.<\/p>\n
Lancaster held the Roughriders\u2019 record for consecutive completions until Cody Fajardo upped it by one, to 15, on Aug. 6, 2021 against the visitors from B.C.<\/p>\n
Harris reached 14 in a row on a night when three key playmakers (Samuel Emilus, Kian Schaffer-Baker and A.J. Ouellette) were sidelined by injuries.<\/p>\n
Three members of Friday\u2019s receiving corps \u2014 Johnny Johnson III, D\u2019Sean Mimbs and Dylan Djete \u2014 entered the game with a combined total of five CFL starts.<\/p>\n
They all had productive games on Friday in collaboration with Harris, who threw for 401 yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever it takes to get wins,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it means throwing for 400 or 150 or 200, it doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s just about making sure that we\u2019re putting ourselves in position to win football games.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is what generally happens when Harris is behind centre.<\/p>\n
Saskatchewan sports a 27-13 regular-season record in games started by Harris. Factor in the playoffs, including last year\u2019s Grey Cup win, and the slate improves to 30-14. Winning percentage: 68.2.<\/p>\n
After the latest win, Harris was in the unaccustomed position of accepting a handoff. He was given the aforementioned game ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn true Trevor fashion, he took that ball and was looking to give it away (to a teammate),\u201d Mace said. \u201cI said, \u2018No, buddy, that\u2019s your ball. Pick another one to give to somebody else.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s Trevor, though. He\u2019s never going to be the \u2018me\u2019 guy. He\u2019s always going to deflect, and it\u2019s not a show. That\u2019s really who he is, which is a huge part of why you love him.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019ll tell you what: Nobody got more cheers than him when he got that game ball, because that\u2019s incredible. We\u2019re so happy to have him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re so grateful for that guy \u2014 as a football player, and for him to be our quarterback \u2014 but there are so many things that have nothing to do with throwing the football.\u201d<\/p>\n
TOMMY TD TIMES THREE, TWICE<\/p>\n
Tommy Stevens\u2019 three touchdown runs (this is a recording) led to some research that extended well into the overnight. (We\u2019re filing this one at on Saturday at 5:51 a.m.)<\/p>\n
For starters, Friday\u2019s hat trick tied a team record for touchdowns in a game by a quarterback. He first claimed a share of that record on Aug. 1 against the host Edmonton Elks.<\/p>\n
Stevens is the first Roughriders pivot to accomplish that feat twice. The other three-TD games were produced by Austin (Oct. 23, 1993 versus Calgary), Rocky Butler (Sept. 1, 2002 versus the Winnipeg Blue Bombers) and Michael Bishop (Oct. 30, 2008 at Toronto Argonauts).<\/p>\n
Stevens is the first Roughriders quarterback with back-to-back games of at least three touchdowns.<\/p>\n
He is the fourth member of the Roughriders \u2014 or the Regina Rugby Club \u2014 to register at least three major scores in consecutive games. The others:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Brian Timmis (four tries\/TDs versus Saskatoon Quakers, Oct. 30, 1920; three tries versus Calgary Tigers, Oct. 6, 1920).<\/p>\n
\u2022 Hugh Campbell (three TDs at Edmonton, July 29, 1966; three TDs versus Winnipeg, Aug. 7, 1966).<\/p>\n
\u2022 George Reed (three TDs at Winnipeg, Oct. 23, 1968; four TDs versus Edmonton, Oct. 30, 1968).<\/p>\n
On Friday, Stevens scored his three TDs within a span of 13:37 during the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Efficient, yes, but not a team record. Curtis Mayfield scored three TDs within 6:16 against the visitors from Winnipeg on Sept. 5, 1999. He broke the Club\u2019s speed record of 7:39, set by Campbell versus Winnipeg on Aug. 7, 1964.<\/p>\n
Stevens, Mayfield and Campbell are among seven Roughriders who have scored three touchdowns in one quarter. Gluey Hughie accomplished that feat on Sept. 5, 1966 against the visiting Montreal Alouettes. The other four:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Ken Carpenter (Sept. 5, 1955 versus B.C.).<\/p>\n
\u2022 Ferd Burket (Oct. 26, 1959 at Winnipeg).<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bob Renn (Sept. 26, 1960 versus Calgary).<\/p>\n
\u2022 George Reed (Oct. 7, 1973 versus B.C.).<\/p>\n
Stevens is two off the pace when it comes to the most touchdowns by a Roughrider after the first eight games of a season. Campbell had 13 TDs, all on receptions, at this juncture in 1966.<\/p>\n
At this early stage, Stevens is just two behind Kerry Joseph, who in 2007 established a team record for touchdowns in a season by a quarterback (13).<\/p>\n
Carpenter has held the Roughriders\u2019 single-season TDs record (18) since 1955.<\/p>\n
KeeSEAN\u2019S CRUSHING IT<\/p>\n
With 57 catches after eight games, KeeSean Johnson is on pace for 128 over a full season.<\/p>\n
Don Narcisse set the Roughriders\u2019 record of 125 in 1995.<\/p>\n
At this rate, Johnson will amass 1,606 receiving yards over a full 18 games. That would put him third in Roughriders history, behind Joey Walters. The spectacular No. 17 had 1,715 receiving yards in 1981 and 1,692 a year later.<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s 57 catches after eight games are the most by a Roughrider who lines up exclusively at receiver. Craig Ellis, an all-purpose running back, had 64 receptions after the first eight games of the 1985 season.<\/p>\n
ROLL CREDITS \u2026<\/p>\n
\u2022 Nice people who deserve a plug: Gerry Harris, Pamela Cowan, Bruce Johnstone, Ed Tiefenbach, Marg Tiefenbach, Jim Denton, Marie Denton, Kalie Harris, Kelly Hrudey, Maurizio Dattilo, Lori Dattilo, Liam Dattilo, Elliott Dattilo, Noah Dattilo, Evan Dattilo, Tommy Stevens, Joshua Bell, Shirley Proud, Peter Boersch, Dylan Djete, Nick Wiebe, Jade Russell, Maddy Birns and, with congratulations on 40,000 yards, Trevor Harris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trevor Harris has celebrated a 40th birthday and 40 grand in the same year. Most recently, he reached…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-851035","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\/851035","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=851035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}