To be blunt: these kind of starts have to stop.
The Tiger-Cats have dropped to 0-3 after they turned the ball over on the opening kickoff, and fell behind 17-0 before the game even reached the second quarter, as the Saskatchewan Roughriders celebrated their home opener with a well-deserved 36-20 victory Sunday.
The Ticats did have some good moments, but not many and certainly not nearly enough to derail a home team that was feeling very good about itself after beating the Ticats 33-30 just seven days earlier, improbably rallying for 10 points in the final two minutes and 11 seconds.
The Riders extended that steamrolling into the first 15 minutes of this one, with a couple of the same factors: some surgical work by Trevor Harris, and a critical, game-altering turnover. Last week it was an interception that bounced unluckily off Tim White to set up the winning points, and this week it was a fumble by Lawrence Woods III on the opening kickoff which led to a Saskatchewan touchdown barely a minute into the game.
“We put ourselves into a hole,” head coach Scott Milanovich said of the early 17-0 deficit. “Honestly, I put this game on me. I didn’t have them ready to play at the start of the game, didn’t call a good enough game on offence. It’s my job to put these guys in a position to win and to get off to a start like that, that one’s on me.”’
The coach’s mea culpa is appreciated but there were lots of them to go around.
The Ticats couldn’t establish a ground game of any kind early and then, so deeply in arrears, were in no position to try to.
They had five turnovers, including a fumble by Bo Levi Mitchell who was stripped from behind, just five yards from the Rider end zone on the Ticats’ first drive of the second half, and down just 17-8.
Mitchell was also picked off three times, twice after tipped balls by Rider defenders. One of them went right to former Ticat Jameer Thurman who powered it into the end zone for a 25-7 lead that virtually clinched the game with a full quarter yet to play.
Tim White rarely got open under concentrated coverage and was held to no catches. For the second time this season they failed to have a desperate on-side kickoff go the required 10 yards (although they did recover the next one after the affair was already decided). And the Ticats couldn’t move their feet out of the way of their own shots, taking 11 penalties for 89 yards.
Perhaps most egregiously, the Ticats were unable to take advantage of Harris’ departure late in the second quarter with a left knee injury incurred on a Nick Usher tackle. That left the game in the hands of Shea Patterson, essentially the short-yardage quarterback who’d completed only four CFL passes before Sunday. He didn’t light anything up with his arm, but he did use his legs, and those of power back A.J. Ouellette who burst muscularly out of his early-season slump.
As in in Game 1 in Calgary the early deficit left the hill too steep and slippery to climb. It was definitely not the start they were looking for, and needed, especially with 28,475 green-clad patrons unleashing mega-decibels of support.
“Not the start, not the middle, not the ending,” Mitchell said afterward. “We’re trying to get rid of the losses and get rid of the mistakes and we had a lot of mistakes early on.
“Obviously, give the fans credit; they made it loud. With the offence we run we have to be locked into details early on and make sure that we, as a whole look at ourselves and take care of how we can get better in that sense, of playing in a road stadium. Personally, I need to take care of the football, trust the read and move on.”
Mitchell explained that some of those missing details included not having the right cadence every time, and “we had too many pre-snap penalties that continue to back us up, momentum-wise, when we felt we were driving.
“I fumbled the ball down there when the score was 18-7. At minimum, we get a field goal and make it a one-score game. Give them credit, they ran a good scheme but when I pull the ball down and try to run, I can’t let that D-lineman get that ball.”
On Thurman’s pick-six, Mitchell said he didn’t accurately assess where the field side linebacker was playing, while the linebacker (Sayles) read the route well and jumped the ball to tip it, “and Jameer did a good job finishing it.”
This was the fifth time in the last 42 years that Saskatchewan and Hamilton have played “true” back-to-back games, without a bye week for either team in between, and the Riders have now swept all five of those couplets.
“There are a number of things that went wrong,” a subdued Milanovich said. “We had a lot of first-and-extra-longs early in the game. And I think we had four second-and-extra-longs, which to me obviously says we weren’t doing well enough on first down. Particularly when you start into the wind like that, you’ve gotta stay ahead of the sticks and we weren’t able to.”
While the game opened under sunshine, it was soon cloudy and not far from Regina there were lightning strikes and tornado warnings but those threats never materialized around the stadium. But there was a fierce wind out of the west right from the onset and the Riders had it at their backs in the first and fourth quarters.
The Ticats would normally use running back James Butler—who had 119 rushing yards in Calgary in the season opener– more often into the wind, but were down too much too early and he carried the ball only five times for 10 yards. Mitchell was actually the Cats’ leading rusher with 17 yards.
“We weren’t running it particularly well to begin with early in the game and obviously when you have the wind and it’s a factor like that, we need to be better on the ground, no doubt about that,” Milanovich said. “It puts a lot of pressure on the passing game. It puts a lot of pressure on the offensive line to protect. They have a good D-line so it’s certainly something we have to do better at.”
One thing they are doing well is getting the ball to rookie Shemar Bridges, who recovered an on-side kick and had nine catches for 113 yards and now has 22 catches and 270 yards in his first three pro games. He and Mitchell combined for a beautiful 41-yard touchdown strike late in the second quarter for the Ticats’ first points of the game. The offence had been mostly stagnant prior to that. Fellow newcomer Dezmon Patmon also was impressive with four catches, but ratio considerations make it difficult to get him in the game regularly.
The Ticats play their third road game in four starts next Sunday in Ottawa, their first date with an Eastern opponent, and it’s imperative that they come out of the gates the way they did against the Riders last week at home, not being left in the blocks they were in Calgary and Saskatchewan.
“I think everyone’s very disappointed,” Milanovich said. “I know I am and I can only speak for myself. I’m disappointed with the way we played, and with the way we coached tonight. The buck stops with me and I’ve got to do a better job for these guys.”
CATS CLAUSES: Kiondré Smith caught five passes and had his third touchdown in three games for the Ticats … CB Jamal Peters had the Ticats’ first takeaway of the year with an interception … RB Ante Litre, who is under centre for many short-yardage plays, continued his string of successful third down conversions, scoring a touchdown on 3rd and 1 … Ticat LB Kyle Wilson led all tacklers with 10 … the Riders had seven pass knockdowns, the Ticats had only three … Rider starting quarterback Trevor Harris went 16-for-21 for 177 yards and touchdown passes to Samuel Emilus and Ajou Ajou in the two quarters he played before being injured … his replacement Shea Patterson was 4-for-10 and scored on a one-yard run … A.J. Ouellette had 98 yards for the Riders on 20 carries.