The Saskatchewan Roughriders are undefeated with Payton manning the all-important left tackle spot.<\/p>\n
Payton Collins<\/a> has been a starting offensive lineman for three games \u2014\u00a0all victories \u2014 with an 8-1 team that sports the CFL\u2019s best record.<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly, as he gets more comfortable with the playbook and the players in this league, he\u2019s only going to get better,\u201d Head Coach Corey Mace said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s very exciting stuff, because I think he has been playing at a high clip to this point. I\u2019m really impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n Collins, a standout at Eastern Kentucky University from 2019 to 2024, was so impressive at Coors Light Training Camp and during the pre-season that he earned an opening-night, front-line assignment against the Ottawa REDBLACKS on June 5.<\/p>\n He helped to provide a fortress-like wall for quarterback Trevor Harris, who was not sacked as Saskatchewan won 31-26.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Collins suffered a knee injury with five minutes remaining in the third quarter.<\/p>\n Daniel Johnson<\/a> played left tackle for the remainder of that game and started the following four contests. A shoulder injury to Johnson opened the door for Darius Washington<\/a>, who made back-to-back starts before Collins was fully recovered.<\/p>\n The 6-foot-7, 301-pounder returned to the lineup on Aug. 2 against the host Montreal Alouettes and helped Saskatchewan win 34-6.<\/p>\n Following a bye week, the Roughriders posted another convincing victory, downing the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 29-9 this past Saturday at Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n Saskatchewan has allowed only two sacks over the three games in which Collins has played.<\/p>\n \u201cI never thought that I would play in Canada, but God has a plan for you,\u201d the 24-year-old Columbus, Ohio product said. \u201cYou never know where you\u2019re going to be in life.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just very grateful that I\u2019m here right now, doing what I am doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Until the Roughriders\u2019 training camp, Collins had been to Canada only once. His family visited Niagara Falls when he was a youngster.<\/p>\n \u201cI love Canada,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cI love Regina. The fans here are amazing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s honestly one of the reasons why I chose to come up here. I saw the atmosphere and it\u2019s a football city, for sure. I thought it would be very cool to play for a city like this.\u201d<\/p>\n The same could be said of Richmond, Ky., which became a home away from home for Collins while in university.<\/p>\n Collins, who started 56 consecutive games with the Eastern Kentucky Colonels,<\/p>\n signed with Saskatchewan on May 2 \u2014\u00a0shortly after the NFL Draft. He had already been closely scouted by Assistant GM Kyle Carson at the Hula Bowl this past January.<\/p>\n Mace, Jeremy O\u2019Day (Vice-President of Football Operations\/General Manager) and Edwin Harrison (Offensive Line Coach) were also well aware of Collins\u2019 skill set.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I saw the tape \u2026 Ed saw the tape \u2026 Marc saw the tape \u2026 JO, Kyle and the scouting department saw the tape \u2026 they saw it early,\u201d Mace said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you saw the college tape, it was, \u2018Oh my goodness!\u2019 It was really exciting to know that he was going to come up here.\u201d<\/p>\n Very quickly, Mace labelled Collins as Big Red \u2014\u00a0a common monicker, considering his hair colour.<\/p>\n But then another nickname began to circulate: Clifford the Big Red Dog.<\/p>\n \u201cI said to Mace, \u2018This guy\u2019s pretty good,\u2019 \u201d Harris recalled. \u201cHe said, \u2018Clifford?\u2019 I said, \u2018His last name\u2019s Clifford? I thought it was Collins.\u2019 He was like, \u2018No, he\u2019s the big red dog.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d have to ask Mace. Maybe there\u2019s another chain link that goes up higher.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, Corey? Details?<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t care what we call him,\u201d the Roughriders\u2019 chief strategist replied. \u201cHe\u2019s a really good football player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saskatchewan Roughriders are undefeated with Payton manning the all-important left tackle spot. Payton Collins has been a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-93118","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\/93118","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=93118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}