Riders work on establishing a fresh identity for the upcoming season
Building a team identity can takes weeks or months for a football team, but it’s vital to a team’s success.
Throw in a 20-month break and no preseason, it’s understandable that the Saskatchewan Roughriders are still finding their groove.
"It’s too tough to tell right now," Riders’ quarterback Cody Fajardo said. "The only way you can find out your true identity is what you do in the first couple of games, it’s not going to be you play one game and that’s your identity."
The Riders’ players arrived in Regina about a month ago, they’ve been on the field together for three weeks and now will play their first game that counts in almost two years coming up on Friday.
Head coach Craig Dickenson said the Riders are in the process of figuring out what kind of team they want to be.
"We’ve got a team that likes to work hard, we’ve got a team that likes to be around each other and then we’ll just see how it plays out over the next month or so," he said. "We’ll figure out who we are sooner or later, hopefully, it’s the best version of ourselves."
When the Riders’ last hit the field in 2019, it had established a stellar offence led by Fajardo. Many of the key pieces from that offence are back from 2021.
Fajardo will be back at quarterback, he’ll have Shaq Evans to throw to and William Powell steps back in at running back.
"We got a lot of guys back and we got a lot of new pieces that are going to be big contributors to us," said Powell, who finished with 1,093 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns in 2019. "We’ve seen flashes in camp from a multitude of different people, like newcomers that are joining our starting offence and I’m excited to see them play.
"We’ve just got to continue to get better. I’m excited to see everybody building our chemistry and getting into it."
Jason Maas takes over at offensive coordinator for the Riders after being hired prior to COVID-19 shutting down the Canadian Football League for 20 months.
Fajardo can’t wait to see Saskatchewan’s new offence in action.
"It’s incredibly exciting and I really can’t put it into words," he said. "We’ve grinded really hard for two years, just non-stop getting ready for this moment."
Fajardo, the West Division’s Most Outstanding Player in 2019, admitted that while he’s excited, he’s also a little nervous to hit the field against the B.C. Lions on Friday.
"I’m going to be super nervous, I might sail my first couple of passes because I’ll be so amped up with a sold out stadium, but we’ve got to put our emotions in check and we’ve got to go out there and play football like we’ve been doing all of our lives," he said.
The Riders host the Lions on Friday night at Mosaic Stadium. Kick-off is at 7:30 p.m.
HARKER WINS BACKUP QUARTERBACK JOB
Coach Dickenson revealed on Tuesday that Fajardo’s backup for Week 1 will be Isaac Harker. The second-year quarterback put together a strong showing over the past three weeks during training camp to beat out former NFL first round pick Paxton Lynch.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
MPP Sarah Jama asked to leave Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment which has been banned at Queen’s Park.
Mountain guide dies after falling into a crevasse in Banff National Park
A man who fell into a crevasse while leading a backcountry ski group deep in the Canadian Rockies has died.
2 teens charged in Halifax homicide: police
Two teenagers have been charged with second-degree murder in connection to an alleged homicide near the Halifax Shopping Centre earlier this week.
'Deep ignorance': Calls for Manitoba trustee to resign sparked after comments about Indigenous people and reconciliation
A rural Manitoba school trustee is facing calls to resign over comments he made about Indigenous people and residential schools earlier this week.
ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in U.S. if legal options fail, Reuters sources say
TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer to shut down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., four sources said.
12-year-old hippo in Japan raised as a male discovered to be a female
When Gen-chan arrived at a zoo in Japan in 2017, no one questioned whether the then-five-year-old hippopotamus was a boy. Seven years later, zoo staff made a surprising discovery: Gen-chan, now 12, was female.
Here's why Harvey Weinstein's New York rape conviction was tossed and what happens next
Here's what you need to know about why movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction was thrown out and what happens next.
Improve balance and build core strength with this exercise
When it comes to cardiovascular fitness, you may tend to focus on activities that move you forward, such as walking, running and cycling.
Legendary hockey broadcaster Bob Cole dies at 90: CBC
Bob Cole, a welcome voice for Canadian hockey fans for a half-century, has died at the age of 90. Cole died Wednesday night in St. John's, N.L., surrounded by his family, his daughter, Megan Cole, told the CBC.