Five storylines: Roughriders’ rowdy O-line owns the line of scrimmage each game

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This article was published 06/09/2014 (4028 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

1. Stopping the pile pushers

They don’t show up as the feature performers on any highlight-of-the-night packages. They aren’t gyrating in the end zone with a choreographed touchdown dance. And no potato chip or cereal box companies have slapped their likenesses on their packaging.

And yet, it could be said — check that, SHOULD be said — no unit in the Canadian Football League is more dominant right now than the Saskatchewan Roughriders offensive line. Those big eaters from places like Weyburn, Sask., (Brendon LaBatte), Regina (Ben Heenan, Dan Clark), Ste. Foy, Que., (Dominic Picard); Calgary (Chris Best) and Flossmoor, Ill., (Xavier Fulton) have owned the line of scrimmage this year and, in particular, in the two games against the Bombers.

Saskatchewan’s multi-look backfield featuring Will Ford, Anthony Allen and Jerome Messam — along with QB Darian Durant — have rushed for 340 yards against the Bombers in two games. And they weren’t just throwaway yards, either. Messam chewed up Winnipeg’s front seven in a 23-17 win back on Aug. 7 and in last week’s Labour Day Classic the Riders again pounded the ball along the ground in the game-winning drive.

Two stats the Rider O-line can stick out their considerable chests about:

• Saskatchewan leads the CFL with an average of 145.7 yards rushing per game;

• Rider QBs have been sacked 20 times this year, the second lowest to Calgary’s 12.

2. Fewer valleys, more peaks

Walking through the Bomber locker-room post-game last week in Regina, the looks of disappointment on the faces were obvious. This wasn’t a group that had that frightening, faraway look in their eyes that was evident after the 52-0 Labour Day Classic loss a couple of years ago. This was a vibe that screamed out, ‘We had ’em…” The Bombers have played the Riders close in their two meetings this year but are 0-2 because of some big-time fourth-quarter mistakes — Saskatchewan has outscored Winnipeg 27-16 in the final 15 minutes — and an ugly second quarter last week that saw the Riders shut out their visitors 14-0.

“We’ve left too many plays that we can make on the field,” said Bomber linebacker Teague Sherman. “We’re there, we’ve just got to make those little plays.

“There’s only a few times where our defence has been a little bit unsound. On one of the plays we were missing a guy on the field, so any time you have 11 on 12 somehow the ball is going to find its way to the missing gap. We’ve talked about it. We understand what we were doing wrong or where we were lining up wrong. It’s going to be different on Sunday.”

3. More special-teams magic

If the Riders have shown any vulnerability in the last few weeks, it’s been on special teams. They’ve now given up three kick-return touchdowns in the last three weeks: Montreal’s Duron Carter on a missed field goal; B.C.’s Tim Brown on a punt return and Troy Stoudermire’s 64-yard score in last week’s Labour Day Classic. The Bombers also blocked a Josh Bartel punt last week, a play in which the Riders’ Aussie punter was injured (he’ll be replaced by Chris Milo on Sunday).

All this means that Stoudermire, again, could very much be an ‘X Factor’.

“Returning is never easy, but my return team has been doing a great job blocking for me,” said Stoudermire, the CFL’s top special teams player last week. “They’re making big holes for me and I’m just using my speed to hit those lanes.”

4. Passing game production

A sign your passing game could use a little oomph: the fullback — in this case Michel-Pierre Pontbriand of the Bombers — finishes with more receiving yards than two of the starting pass catchers. Pontbriand, the club’s gritty fullback, had one catch on Labour Day for 16 yards — which was 10 more yards than Clarence Denmark picked up on his one reception and six more than Cory Watson on his lone catch.

Some numbers that show this is more than a one-game blip:

• Aaron Kelly has gone two games without a catch and since his seven catches for 101-yard performance against Hamilton back on July 31st — four games ago — he has just four receptions for 32 yards.

• Rory Kohlert has seven catches in his last three games.

And now, without Nick Moore in the lineup, the Bombers will be heading into battle without one of Willy’s most-consistent targets. Worth noting: Drew Willy is coming off a season-low 171 yards passing last week and in the last three games the Bombers have averaged just 188 yards through the air.

“It’s always a combination of factors,” said Mike O’Shea when asked about the dip in the passing numbers. We completed a fairly high percentage of deep balls earlier in the season. We’re down from that. It’s everything from protection to precision on the routes, timing of the throw, wind conditions… there’s a lot of factors. Had we completed one or two of those five deep passes that we went for in that last game the game would have been different.

“A lot of it is just the very fine, minute detail that you see on the film that you might not recognize. It’s just one step more, a fraction of a second here or a launch point. Whatever it is, at that point you are that close to making those plays.”

“It’s frustrating,” added Kelly. “The last game I had some opportunities. I was close a couple times and it just didn’t click on those couple of plays. It’s always frustrating when you’re not in the stat column when you lose. Win and it doesn’t really matter. But when you lose you feel like maybe there was something more I could have done to help the team win.”

5. Homefield advantage?

We know this about Investors Group Field, now a year and a half into its existence: It’s a spectacular jewel in south Winnipeg and considered the loudest stadium in the CFL — a fact even the Riders have acknowledged.

But through last year and the first half of this season the Bombers are just 4-10 in their new building. And that hardly qualifies it as a tough building for visitors.

What the Bombers are hopeful for now is this: With a decent squad that isn’t out of the game just after the final note of the national anthem — as was the case last year — an engaged and stoked outfit can once again force opponents into offensive penalties like time counts and illegal procedures.

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And when teams are this close, every advantage helps. Case in point: The 2013 Banjo Bowl when a sad-sack Bomber side — 1-9 at the time — knocked off the Riders 25-13.

“Last year this place was crazy and we had, what, two wins at that time? Maybe one?” said Sherman. “That was with our team last year. This year it’s a completely different story and we can already tell how much Winnipeg is behind us. It’s going to be loud and crazy.”

Ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait

—with files from Paul Wiecek