The Dyce is right

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This article was published 06/09/2015 (4047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

REGINA — It was a first for the Saskatchewan Roughriders and a first for Bob Dyce.

But after rallying for their first win of the 2015 season with a 37-19 victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers Sunday, there was a certain ‘act-like-you’ve-been-there-before’ feel to Dyce’s post-game session with the media.

And maybe that, in part, is why his first week at the controls will be seen as being so successful. There was a calmness to his approach and his team responded.

“I’m happy for the guys in that room,” said Dyce. “They went through nine hard weeks of great effort and for them to realize and have a big victory materialize today… I’m just ecstatic about that. It was a different situation, but I’m happy for (GM) Jeremy (O’Day) and I’m happy for (president) Craig (Reynolds). I’m just happy.

“Probably for the first time I’m happy for myself as well. I haven’t had a lot of time to think about it. But, yeah, I’m happy.”

He should be. Dyce became the second coach to win a game this year as a replacement, following Montreal’s Jim Popp, who won his first contest after sacking Tom Higgins. But coaches who take over for the first time in their careers were just 9-21. Make that 10-21 now.

Dyce made some critical decisions this week leading up to the game after taking over for Corey Chamblin. He didn’t hesitate to declare Brett Smith his starting quarterback after he was yanked last week, made a bigger commitment to running the ball and brought a relaxed-but-be-accountable approach to practice.

Asked how the changes — and the coaching change itself — might have affected the outcome, he said:

“That’s a challenging question to answer. The guys went out and they played hard. They played hard every week. Obviously there was some change because things did change… the way we handled them was a little different and they were able to come out and play maybe a little bit more free.

“We talk about the resiliency of the team, I believe the assistant coaches are the leaders and they give them that mindset. They were a big part of that. We know what our goal is, our goal is to win and they went out and did their jobs.”

And now for his encore, Dyce heads back to his hometown for this weekend’s Banjo Bowl that will be played in front of friends and family.

“If we handled this past week, this week shouldn’t be as big a challenge other than we face a good football team,” said Dyce. “We refocus. We’ve got six days to try and get another victory. All we can do is focus on the task at hand and the task at hand is we’re going into what will be a very hostile environment and playing a good football team. It’s very challenging to beat a team two weeks in a row.”

Dyce has done the tunnel-vision thing all week, but did admit there was one moment that felt different on Sunday after years as an assistant.

“The time waiting just before the national anthem,” he said. “It was a little bit of a quiet time and the guys are in the middle of the field and he did say ‘The Saskatchewan Roughriders, led by Bob Dyce’…. that was probably the first time where I thought, ‘Wow.’

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPEdTait