Riders' offensive line fine tuning for third meeting with Calgary

REGINA -

The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ offensive line is preparing for their third consecutive meeting against the Calgary Stampeders on Saturday.

The Riders dropped both games to Stampeders before their bye week and will be heading off Calgary for the final regular season meeting.

Dan Clark, offensive lineman, said Calgary had been “whooping” him on the line in those past two games.

The veteran added the Stampeders are good upfront and have been doing a great job of coming up with game plans against them.

“They’re definitely beating our one-on-one match ups that we’ve got to win and it’s just something we need to be better at as an O-line group across the way and that starts on Saturday in their place,” said Clark.

Fellow lineman Evan Johnson said the O-line has been using practice to work on picking up the different techniques the Calgary defence has been throwing at them.

“We are able to see it throughout the week and during our individual periods with just the offensive unit we’re able to do bag work in order to kind of simulate that look and that feel,” said Johnson.

The Riders’ offensive line coach Stephen Sorrells said the group has to find a way to get better everyday and that is done through hard work.

“I’m a big believer of if you chase perfection you can catch excellence,” said Sorrells. “I know we’re not going to be perfect, but we’re striving to do that.”

Sorrells said the O-line hasn’t been playing to his standard and he hasn’t been coaching to it, but if they play well up front in Calgary this weekend they have a chance to snap their Stampeder losing skid.

“Quarterbacks, it’s like our mama, we don’t anybody messing with our mother, so we don’t want to let anybody be messing with our quarterback and the more comfortable that we can him feel the better we’re going to play,” said Sorrells.

The offensive line has a number of new faces on it this season and the players have been working on cohesion and communication since the beginning of the season.

“It’s about having each other’s backs and going to battle for each other and that’s something we will do and that’s something that as one of the vocal leaders of the offensive line that we will continue to do and we will continue to be better for this team,” said Clark.