During every Rider Broadcast Network pregame show, former Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive lineman and current live game analyst Luc Mullinder offers his Three Keys to the Game. In a recurring segment this season, we’ll take a look at how the Riders met or missed when it came to those metrics and how big of an effect they had on the outcome.
It’s safe to say things didn’t go well early for the Riders against the Toronto Argonauts on Saturday night at Mosaic Stadium, but once they found their groove after halftime, it was all systems go in all facets of the game. That turned into a 28-24 win that snapped Saskatchewan’s two-game losing skid.
1- Force Chad Kelly to be patient. Keep him nickel and diming down the field, prevent his dangerous deep balls and control his offence.
How did the Riders do? Not so well, then really well.
To put it frankly, the Riders looked like they were going to be in for a long night with the way Kelly was moving the ball in the first half, and it wasn’t nickel and diming, either. A 39-yard pass to David Ungerer III on the opening drive set up Toronto’s first touchdown, and a massive 58-yard catch by Damonte Coxie set up their final major. All old, Kelly had over 270 yards passing in the first half.
And then nothing. Kelly managed to find Tyler Kahmann for a 23-yard catch in the fourth quarter, but that was it for big passing plays until the final play of the game, when Coxie caught a 49-yard Hail Mary and was immediately tackled.
The adjustments at halftime all but snuffed out Kelly’s offence, making him force throws and make mistakes, and that helped key Saskatchewan’s comeback
2 – Win the first half. This is an easy one: the two teams are 1-7 combined when trailing at the half. Win the first half and the odds of winning the game go up dramatically.
How’d the Riders do? The two teams are now a combined 2-7 when trailing at the half.
It’s kind of wild how much of a difference there can be between two halves of football, and Saturday night was a pretty good example. As mentioned above, the Argos seemed to be able to move the ball at will at times in the opening 30 minutes and by the time the smoke cleared in the first half, the Argos had a 22-12 lead.
It was as different as could be after the break though, and with the Riders defence pitching a second-half shutout — the Argos only points came on a fourth quarter safety — Trevor Harris’ offence put up 16 unanswered points to secure the win.
It was positive to see Saskatchewan making big plays while trailing the game, and even better to see them find a way to win it.
3 – Make it a KISS game. After shooting themselves in the foot the last couple weeks, keep it simple, stupid. You don’t need to press, that’s how mistakes happen. If your best is a seven out of 10, then you have to do your best to get to that number and stay there. Don’t do too much and make costly errors
How did the Riders do? Safe to say pretty well.
It’s hard to quantify how close a player is playing to their max ability, but whatever the Riders did in that direction turned out well for them.
You didn’t have players flying around trying to make extremely difficult interceptions that turned into big gains for the opposition, balls being thrown into exceptionally dangerous situations or anyone seemingly overextending themselves into a mistake all that often.
And the guys who did seem to be at their max, like KeeSean Johnson and his 146 yards in receiving and James Burgess Jr. with his first career interception, well, they were key performers in the game.
All in all, the Riders did what they needed to in order to find success when they had to on Saturday and they picked up a big win because of it.
Saskatchewan is now off until next Sunday when they host the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Labour Day Classic. Kick-off is 5 p.m. at Mosaic Stadium.
