Tired, injured, Ticats are still in first but need the bye week to regroup and recover

When your opportunity knocks, you’ve got to help it kick the door down.

And largely because they didn’t do that when they had the early chances, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats head into a sorely (literally) needed bye week off a second straight loss.

The other parts of the equation in the Cats’ 29-9 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders out on the prairies Saturday afternoon was the work of the Riders themselves. Hamilton came out roaring with their arsenal in synch, made some big early plays on both sides of the ball, but the Riders grew stronger as the game grew longer and all of the little things nipping at the Ticats’ ankles added up to the Riders winning going away.

The Ticats finished their most gruelling portion of the season—four games in 22 days, with the only home game prepped with just one full practice day, 16,000 air travel miles, and a recently thick injury portfolio—with a pair of losses to drop to 6-4, and their only real off-game since the opener in Calgary back in the first week of June.

Now they face two more important games against the East—the Labour Day Classic against the Argos, and five days later in Montréal against the Als who also lost Saturday and remain a game back of the East-leading Ticats.

The Cats steadfastly refuse to use it as any kind of prop, or even mention it more than a brief reference, but they were clearly tired and it was a contributing factor to some uncommon Ticat characteristics in Saskatchewan’s dominant win.

They extracted only a pair of field goals from four pivotal trips deep into the Rider end, surrendered six sacks, lost the turnover battle, failed to score a touchdown, Bo Levi Mitchell threw two interceptions (he had only three in the first nine games) and for the first time this season did not record a touchdown pass.

Mitchell did have some strong moments, under pressure from a vicious Saskatchewan defence coming off a bye week, and so did the defence. But the defenders also allowed long Rider marches into strong and capricious northern gusts to squander Ticats’ wind-advantage time. And they were eventually worn down by Trevor Harris’s clinical work, especially on some second-and-longs, and the penetrating receiving routes of rapid Rider receivers KeeSean Johnson and Dohnte Meyers.

And there was the pounding of power back AJ Ouellette who had 117 combined rushing and receiving yards, much of that in the final two and a half quarters. His presence was of immense help to Harris’s ability to overcome his own mistakes and helped erode the Ticat defence as the Riders piled up 412 yards of net offence.

The Riders demonstrated that, at this moment they are the best team in the CFL, strong and well-coached, as Scott Milanovich said afterward, in all three phases of the game.

It’s unlikely that the loss will affect the Ticats’ confidence. It’s too deeply seated.

They went into a hostile environment where it was difficult to hear signals, with a sellout green sea of 33,324 braying its disdain for anything black and gold, with four more players added for this game to an injury list which already included half a dozen Canadians key to special teams. Safety Stavros Katsantonis, shutdown corner Jamal Peters and weakside linebacker Ray Wilborn, all starters, were injured for this game as was Isaiah Wooden Sr., who’s elevated himself into the upper echelon of CFL punt returners.

“This atmosphere is a playoff-like atmosphere,” said Mitchell. “You’re playing a great team, a great offence, a great defence. But regardless, all we’re trying to do right now is continue to get better. Yes, we’re first in the East. Yes, we have eight games left. We are where we want to be.

“This doesn’t affect our confidence of who we are, what we can do and the ability we have to finish the season.”

Milanovich felt that “the biggest fail for us really was the red zone. Which we’ve been really good at this year. We weren’t able to put some distance between them and us when we had the wind and weren’t able to get touchdowns.”

The Ticats got two Marc Liegghio field goals on their first two possessions but it should have been far more. Mitchell marched them quickly down the field in the opening drive to the Saskatchewan 9-yard-line but they came up short; and quickly thereafter defensive back Destin Talbert brilliantly jumped a route for a diving interception, his third of the season, and the offence got it to the Rider 19-yard line but once again were forced to turn to Legghio instead of to a touchdown.

What was very encouraging, though, was the blocking of the line and the perceptive determined running of Greg Bell, giving the Ticats their best early-game rushing success of the season.

Still, critical points not harvested.

“Any time you’re in the red zone, you want to score,” Mitchell agreed. “You want to see the seven points go up on the board and reward the defence especially for the way they’re playing right there.

“But at the beginning of the game, you’re trying to be smart. We’ve got the wind, we’re trying to go fast. We’re trying to take care of the ball down there, make the right plays. But, yeah, we always want to get that ball in there.”

Mitchell was intercepted by Tevaugh Campbell on the first drive of the second half but the Cats caught a break when the ensuing Rider counter-punch resulted in one of three missed Brett Lauther field goals, but not before Harris, riding Ouellette, gobbled up more than four minutes into the wind.

He ate up much more, with better results, after the Ticats special teams came up big on the next series. With the Cats forced to punt, the plummeting ball bounced off returner Drae McCray’s chest, then back into his hands. He got hammered by a trio of Cat down-fielders, led by Brian Cole and the ball popped loose with rookie Ronan Horrall, in just his second pro game, recovered for a first down at the Saskatchewan 12-yard line. But Rider ballhawk Rolan Milligan, the reigning CFL defensive player of the year, picked it off and Hamilton, down 19-6 at the half, lost the chance to make it a one-score game.

Harris went to work with slicing and dicing precision, finding Joe Robustelli regularly including a 15-yard touchdown to extend the Saskatchewan lead to 26-6 but almost more importantly chewing up nearly eight more minutes, into the wind. That was, essentially, the point(s) of no return.

“Yeah, it was big,” Milanovich said. “I thought our defense did well for the most part for most of the game. Again, Saskatchewan is good. They’re a three-phase football team and they’re well-coached. And Trevor is an elite quarterback. And he showed again why. They’ve got receivers who can make plays. And they’ve got a running back, they can run the ball. So you’re going to have to play your best to win. And we didn’t do that.”

No they did not. You’re going to have games where things don’t go well—the Ticats almost always had one in the second half of most seasons they’ve made the Grey Cup—but the barometer is how you recover from them, what lessons you learn from your shortfalls and what corrections you make.

The offensive line was, as usual, self-critical. At least two of the six sacks were coverage sacks, when Mitchell’s receivers were blanketed by a strong Rider secondary, but half a dozen sacks doesn’t sit well anywhere, especially in linemen’s row.

”Just not good enough,” centre Coulter Woodmansey said bluntly. “We’ve gotta communicate better, play better and just be better. Everyone needs to look at themselves but it starts with me: I have to play better.”

Kyler Fisher, who has had a great season as a backup linebacker and special teams stalwart, made his first Ticat start at weak-side linebacker replacing injured Ray Wilborn and had 12 defensive tackles, the sixth-highest single-game total in Ticat history.

“They’re a great team,” Fisher said. “Ouellette is a great running back and I thought we did a pretty good job of him on first down.

“I think this bye week is going to be huge. Get our minds right, spend the whole week learning from this game; I think it’ll be huge getting ready for the rest of the season.”

Mitchell said Milanovich advised his players not to just forget football during the bye week “and sit around eating cheeseburgers” but to have a mental rest and to concentrate on getting healthy and recovering from the physical toll that eight games without a break exact on every football player.

It’s possible that the Ticats will have more than half a dozen players who weren’t available for Saturday’s game back in livery for the Labour Day Classic.

In Regina, the Cats lost starting right tackle Quinton Barrow to injury early in the third quarter and had to shift guard Brandon Revenberg to tackle and bring Nate Dumoulin-Duguay into Revenberg’s spot. Dumoulin-Duguay also got banged up as did Mitchell who was hammered a couple of times; once triggering Milanovich to unsuccessfully appeal for roughing the passer, one of a number of marginal rulings in this game.

The Riders also had some injuries, including former Ticat defensive end Malik Carney. They were already without star receivers, Samuel Emilus, Kian Schaffer-Baker, Shawn Bane and Mario Alford, plus linebacker CJ Avery. As Milanovich said, that’s part of the game.

So the tired-Cats, who faced a well-rested team coming off a bye for the second time in a row, will themselves be the rested ones as they head into Labour Day. They’re still all alone in first, with two big games against the East, which lost all four games on the road in the West over the weekend. They can make themselves essentially uncatchable by the Argos if they can win on the first Monday of September when they return. And then it’s off on another short week to Montréal for a likely battle to retain first place and get a leg fairly firmly up on finishing atop the division.

“We’ve got eight games left and fortunately five of those are at home,” Milanovich said. “So we’re looking forward to getting back home on Labour Day and turning around.”

CATS CLAUSES: Bo Levi Mitchell was 16-for-31 and his 201 passing yards were his lowest in the past two seasons, and just the second time he’s been under 300 this year. But, despite the six sacks he was actually quite elusive in the backfield and also ran four times for 26 yards … RB Greg Bell had 107 yards from scrimmage, 55 on the ground, 52 on passes … Kenny Lawler’s three catches for 62 yards led the Cats and he had the only reception of 30 yards or more … Shemar Bridges caught 4 passes for 35 yards … Philip Ossai had the only Ticat sack … a critical play was a pass interference call against cornerback Zamari Walton, playing his first Ticat game, in the final two minutes of the first half. It was not originally a penalty but the Riders challenged and the non-call was overturned and eventually led to the Riders having time and space to drive for a field goal to stretch their halftime lead to 19-6 … Backup Ticat QB Taylor Powell finished the final series, completing one of his two passes and recently-signed RB Kevin Brown also saw his first action in the backfield… Trevor Harris was 21-for-27 for 307 yards and 3 TDs against just one interception and extended his CFL record to 12 straight games with a completion percentage of 70 per cent or better … Rider RB A.J. Ouellette had 18 carries for 84 yards and 33 more yards on three catches … WR KeeSean Johnson caught 18 passes for 117 yards, half of the catches on second down … Dohnte Meyers caught 3 passes for 76, and a touchdown … Tommy Nield, who played at McMaster, caught all four passes thrown his way, including one for a touchdown.