The Saskatchewan Roughriders will have running back Quali Conley in the lineup for Sunday’s game against the B.C. Lions and they intend to use his primary services.
“We always want to be a physical team,” right guard Jacob Brammer said. “We always want to run the ball.”
The Riders have gotten away from that when No. 1 back A.J. Ouellette hasn’t been available to take handoffs from quarterback Trevor Harris.
Ouellette has been limited to four games this season because of injuries but has 288 yards on 63 carries. That’s 72 yards and 15.75 carries per contest. Those average have dropped with Conley, Ouellette’s backup, and when Star’Corius Thomas filled in for Conley last week.
Conley, a CFL rookie, has 191 yards on the ground on 40 carries over four carries, good for 47.75 yard and 10 carry averages. Thomas rushed ball nine times for 36 yards in his CFL debut in the 26-19 loss at Hamilton last Saturday.
Thomas never got an attempt in the fourth quarter, albeit with the Riders suddenly trailing, and finds himself on the practice roster now that Conley is back from a hamstring ailment.
The Riders were praised for making opponents’ offences one-dimensional after their previous game, a win over the hapless Ottawa Redblacks, because of the way they’d slowed down the run. They’d allowed just 110 yards rushing over their previous three contests before travelling to Hamilton, a 36.7-yard average. Included in that total was a paltry 12 yards picked up on the ground by the Redblacks.
However, the Tiger-Cats rushed for 87 yards to the Riders’ 45. It was the Riders who were one-dimensional last Saturday, especially in the fourth quarter. They don’t want that to happen again.
The Riders are 4-0 when they rush for 100 yards in a game this season. Getting the better of the run game is critical in Vancouver.
“Any time you can get a team to be one-dimensional, I don’t know if that’s anybody’s plan going into it, but it’s a tall task,” Riders coach Corey Mace said. “They do a great job stopping the run and they’ve been doing a great job pushing it as far as the offence is concerned. If we do get ourselves in opportunities, we’re trying to run the ball.
“We’ve got to establish ourselves across the LOS (line of scrimmage) and make sure we’re falling forward. Defensively, we’ve got to have some gap integrity, be accountable for who we’ve got to be, and tackle by population.”
That Mace included the Riders defence in his comment was important. The Lions are the best rushing team in the CFL with 116.9 yards per game and six yards per carry.
Running back Zander Horvath has cracked the 100-yard mark in two of his last three games – 191 yards against Winnipeg on July 30 and 102 yards against Calgary last Thursday. The Riders will also have James Butler to contend with. He’s picked up 4.47 yards per carry this season.
The double threat is a lot to prepare for.
“It’s definitely more scheme-oriented and guys being where they need to be and doing their job,” defensive line coach Micah Johnson told Voice of the Roughriders Dave Thomas. “That’s the main thing that pops up in the run game. Guys wind up doing too much and lose gaps. Disciplined ball usually kills most run games.”
The Riders want to kill their opponents’ run game and spark theirs.
Offensively, they’ll have to contend with Lions defensive end Mathieu Betts, an explosive player off the edge who Johnson said has a “special twitch.”
The Riders will have to “disrupt him” as much as possible, as Johnson puts it, and find a way get the ball moving on the ground.
“If anything’s gone wrong, we’ve got to fix it within the offensive line,” Brammer said.
