Kickoff: Saturday, September 7th, 2 p.m. CDT; Princess Auto Stadium
TV/Streaming: CTV, CFL+
Radio: 680 CJOB
Streaks: Sask: 3L; Wpg: 4W
Road/Home: The Roughriders are 2-3-1 on the road; the Blue Bombers are 4-2 at home, having now won four straight at Princess Auto Stadium.
The Banjo Bowl: The Blue Bombers have won four straight Banjo Bowls and are 12-7 overall. Read more on history of the game here.
Saluted: Blue Bombers hall of fame running back Charles Roberts will be added to the Ring of Honour at halftime. Click here for more info on Roberts.
Scene Setter
They fell into a deep, dark hole to start the Canadian Football League season. And now that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have managed to not just survive, but climb out of that 0-4 nightmare they’d just as prefer not to tumble back into the thing.
And if it’s true that staying at the top is often more difficult than the work to get to the summit, then the heavy lifting is just now beginning — especially with this weekend’s Banjo Bowl against the arch-rival Saskatchewan Roughriders, the schedule shrinking, and first place in the West Division still very much a reality.
“We’ve fought so hard to get those wins to get back on top and with where we are now it doesn’t stop,” defensive end Willie Jefferson told bluebombers.com. “Everybody is going to come for us and try to get the No. 1 spot now. So, it’s back to square one and how we were feeling at the beginning of the year with a target on our backs. We’ve got to come out here and be sharp on offence, defence and special teams.
“We’ve got to play Bomber football.”
There was a lot of that in last week’s thrilling Labour Day Classic win over the Riders in which Zach Collaros had thrown for over 200 yards and a score before taking a shot to the chin just before halftime and giving way to Chris Streveler, with Nick Hallett providing a touchdown on a Roughrider botched punt return and Sergio Castillo doing their thing on special teams, and with the defence doing just enough to secure the victory and help get Winnipeg to 6-6.
Amazingly, with the rest of the division falling back to the Blue Bombers over the last few weeks, that .500 mark has them tied for first in the division with the B.C. Lions, with the 5-6-1 Riders just one point off and both the Calgary Stampeders, 4-7, and Edmonton Elks, 4-8, still in the picture.
“It’s the resilience we’ve shown that I like,” said Jefferson. “It comes from the competition level at practice, the communication level at practice and that leads into the game. Now we’re seeing guys getting comfortable playing with each other. That comes from the work during the week, not just flipping a switch on game day.”
“It’s another great challenge for us, another great test,” added running back Brady Oliveira. “The thing is now, though, they have to come to us in front of our home crowd that’s going to be loud — the loudest fans in the league and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
THE DEPTH CHART
The Blue Bombers have made two changes to the depth chart this week. On are OL Pat Neufeld and DB Marquise Bridges; off are LB Adam Bighill and DE Owen Hubert.
Bighill, FYI, has been moved to the six-game injured list while left tackle Stanley Bryant is now on the one-game injured list.
3 THINGS TO WATCH
1. ONE ‘W’ FROM HISTORY
Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea is one win away from passing the legendary Bud Grant to become the winningest coach in franchise history, a story we explored earlier this week in this piece:
O’Shea has a record of 102-68 in his 10 years as Blue Bombers head coach; Grant finished his days here at 102-56-2 before heading south to the Minnesota Vikings. And, not surprisingly, O’Shea has attempted to steer attention away from this all week with the media… and with his team.
“We can talk about that after the game,” said Jefferson. “Look, there’s things we know are happening, things we know are going on that we don’t want to talk about right now because it gets away from the football. Like, everybody knows we have a bye week after this game, but nobody’s talking about the bye week. Everybody in the locker room knows now that Coach O’Shea is one win away from becoming the winningest coach in Bomber history, but nobody’s talking about it. That’s not going to help us win a game.”
O’Shea is in his 10th season as the Blue Bombers head coach, tying him with Grant for the longest run in franchise history. His 170 games as the boss is the most in Winnipeg history and the win would also move him ahead of Grant and John Hufnagel into ninth place in CFL history.
“In this locker room we don’t do a lot of talking about a 100th win or a 100th start or 700th catch or whatever it might be. We don’t focus on that,” said Kenny Lawler. “There is a sense of honour, though, and we talk about honouring our teammates all the time. Now we want to honour the head man, as well. We want to go out there and honour our teammates like we always try to do and once we get the win we’re then directly honouring the coach as well.
“To be able to do that for him would be a great achievement for him, but for us, too. We want to get him that.”
2. BACK TO BACK SEASON
The Blue Bombers and Roughriders will meet for the second straight week in their annual Labour Day Classic/Banjo Bowl doubleheader and when Winnipeg returns from next week’s bye they’ll have a home-and-home with the Edmonton Elks.
The Blue Bombers are on a four-game Banjo Bowl winning streak and have won seven of the last eight of what has become the marquee regular-season game on the CFL schedule. Winnipeg has four Labour Day Classic/Banjo Bowl sweeps (2022, 2021, 2016, 2004) while the Riders have won both seven times (2018, 2014, 2012, 2011, 2009, 2008, 2005).
“It’s hard to win two games in a row, period, let alone two games against the same team back-to-back,” said receiver Nic Demski, who had a touchdown in last week’s win in Regina. “We’re on a good roll now, though, and I’m pumped about it.
“With these back-to-backs you think sometimes that they’re not going to change too much and then they come out with a different game plan and it’s, ‘Whoa, what’s going on here?’ So, sometimes it’s how you spice things up and make things different so they can’t come out and know what you’re going to do.
“There’s always tweaks. It depends so much on the different situations and that’s why I like the game of football. You’re never going to have the same type of different ever. It’s all about the counterpunch when you play the same team back to back.”
During the four-game Banjo Bowl win streak the Blue Bombers have won by scores of 51-6, 54-20, 33-9 and 35-10 — an average margin of victory of 32 points. Still, the guys in Winnipeg’s locker room know full well the Roughriders will be ornery upon arrival.
“”It’s about understanding the psychology of these back-to-backs and how teams approach them. They’re not the same as other games,” said receiver Drew Wolitarsky. “It’s just hard to win back to back. If you win the first one you’ve got this feeling like, ‘Ah, we’re going to get them again this week. We beat them once, we’ll beat them again.’ And when you lose to a team that you have the next week, you’re pissed off.
“Look at last year’s Labour Day game (an OT loss to the Riders)… Zach (Collaros) gave a speech at the end that just woke us all up. It was, ‘we’re better than this. We’ve got to show it.’ And we did.”
3. THE HARRIS EFFECT — THE SEQUEL
We brought this up last weekend and it’s become even more prominent after the Labour Day Classic — Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris continues to put up gaudy numbers against what has been a stingy Blue Bombers defence. Get this: Harris completed 30-of-49 passes last week for 368 yards and three TDs. And in his last two starts against Winnipeg he has gone 59-of-90 for 781 yards for six TDs and no interceptions.
Yet, he’s also 4-9 in 13 career starts against Winnipeg.
“Trevor Harris played really well and got the ball out really quick — as anticipated — and for some of the guys who haven’t played against him before you don’t really know how fast he gets the ball out until you’re out there with him,” explained Blue Bombers defensive coordinator Jordan Younger. “The timing of the game, understanding the timing, is a critical component to playing defence. I believe it caught us off guard. We’ll be more aware of it.
“One of the things that has allowed him to succeed for such a long time is he does a really good job of studying opponent, opponent body language, opponent defences and understanding, ‘OK, I’m going to throw the ball to a spot. If I see you move this way, I’m going to throw it to a spot and I know my guy can get to it before you can.’ So, until you play against a quarterback that can get rid of the ball that quickly, it’s hard to replicate. Now that we’ve seen it on film, the guys will have a better understanding.”
The Last Word:
“To me it’s easily the best rivalry. No matter where each organization is in our cycle that rivalry holds true as just the fiercest, most contested and probably the most fun in terms of fandoms. I think this rivalry survives any lulls organizationally. It really does. (And when the organizations are successful) it’s wild. It’s over the top.” — head coach Mike O’Shea on the Blue Bombers-Roughriders rivalry.