Monday\u2019s 44-24 stomping of the Saskatchewan Roughriders allowed the 2026 Alouettes to finish the regular season 9-0-0 at Percival Molson Stadium. They joined the 1954 and 2009 teams to go undefeated at home.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is special,\u201d head coach Jason Maas admitted when he was asked about going 9-0 at home. \u201cI\u2019ve been in this league for 25 or 26 years, and I\u2019ve been on a lot of great teams and a lot of Grey Cup-winning teams. I\u2019ve never finished 9-0 at home. It\u2019s special and it\u2019s hard to do.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
What made this result even more impressive is the circumstances it came under. The Alouettes had nothing to play for after they clinched first place in the East Division last week. The Riders had everything to play for on Monday afternoon. They still haven\u2019t clinched a playoff spot, and Winnipeg\u2019s win over Calgary earlier this week puts even more pressure on them.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The fact that the Als were able to focus throughout a long week (nine days between games) and come up with a performance like that against a desperate team speaks volumes to the character they have in their locker room.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was our first time being able to play (the Roughriders) since (last year\u2019s Grey Cup),\u201d Maas pointed out. \u201cYes, in the standings we had nothing to play for, but we wanted to show them and the league that we\u2019re going to play to a standard every single day. We\u2019re going to bring it every single day. We\u2019re going to play physical football down the stretch. Our guys care about playing for each other, and we want to get better. We don\u2019t want to let up at all. That\u2019s what I was proud of all week. Our guys worked extremely hard\u2026When the other team has more to play for, but you come out and you can\u2019t tell who has the most to play for, that\u2019s a feather in the cap. That shows that you\u2019re preaching the right things and guys are listening and are understanding it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Alouettes got strong performances from many of their players, but they were led by starting quarterback Davis Alexander who finished the game 26-for-33 with 403 yards passing, five touchdowns and 40 rushing yards.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old always seemed to be in control, even when he was under pressure. Alexander plays with fearlessness that is rare among quarterbacks. He probably doesn\u2019t enjoy being hit, but what separates him from many quarterbacks is that he isn\u2019t afraid to get hit. His pocket presence is fun to watch.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even when Riders defenders were swarming around him, he found a way to stay calm and improvise on the fly to make a play.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely feel good and I trust out guys,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cI think I\u2019ve been the least sacked quarterback in the league so far. What I love about our offensive line is that they block forever. They know the ball is supposed to be out in a certain amount of time but sometimes I get happy feet and I start running around and making people miss. They\u2019re still cutting people off on blocks and stuff. Like one of the touchdowns to Rambo, somebody ended up cutting a (Rider) off and allowed me to get around the corner.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alexander become the first Alouettes quarterback since Anthony Calvillo in 2012 to pass for more than 5,000 yards in a season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Alouettes and Roughriders will do it all over again in Regina next Saturday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. ET. The players will be off the field until Thursday when they hold their only practice of the week.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monday\u2019s 44-24 stomping of the Saskatchewan Roughriders allowed the 2026 Alouettes to finish the regular season 9-0-0 at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-932054","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\/932054","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=932054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}