Saskatchewan Roughriders' quarterback Trevor Harris made sure to try and ease fans' anxiety that the world is not ending after his team's 48-31 Week 15 loss to the Montreal Alouettes.
"I think this new day and age, the social media day and age, the sky is falling, they've lost one in a row, and that's all everybody remembers. The fact of the matter is that we're 13 games in, 10-3, and sitting at the top of the West. We control our own destiny for where we end up through the rest of the season. How we respond to this is really the most important thing," Harris said post-game.
"It's like when we have win streaks and everybody says that we're playing so well and we knew that there were things that we needed to improve upon. If we get ourselves in a situation like this game, where we can't fall behind like that, it'll be no different. This team will respond and this locker room will respond. We'll get some guys back after the bye week, lick our wounds, come back and be hungry for these last five."
Saskatchewan has a bye in Week 16 and return to game action in Week 17. Harris believes there will be some areas to look over in his free time regarding the last game.
"I'm going to watch it in pretty good detail for the next 24 hours, figure out where I can be better and the things that I can do better to help Marc [Mueller] or help our offensive line or help our running backs or receivers and make sure that I'm putting ourselves in a good position. I'm always going to take a hard look at myself and that will never change until I hang up my cleats," Harris said.
"We'll flush it and move on because that's what you're supposed to do, that's what the great teams do, is take a dump and look at it. I heard Jalen Hurts say: 'You take a dump and look at it, you flush that thing and learn from it and go on.'"
The six-foot-three, 212-pound QB finished the game completing 23-of-32 passes for 252 yards with one touchdown and throwing one interception. The 39-year-old has started 12 games for the Riders in 2025, completing 72 percent of his passes for 3,405 yards with 20 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
"We're making a habit of not starting well and it's got to stop. It's not a big issue, but I do think it's something that we need to address in the bye week because it's becoming a little bit too much of a habit for us. We've got to be able to come out of the gates and be better. We should all say it starts with ourselves, but I believe it starts with me," Harris explained.
"I've got to be better, be a little bit more crisp and able to stay on the field for our defence, sustain drives and drives that end in points. It's not something that we want to make a habit anymore because we've been able to dig ourselves out of holes all year, but it seemed like the hole was a little bit too big for us to climb out and I was proud of us for scrapping throughout the second half. There's no quit in this team, no quit in this locker room and there was full belief that we were going to win that game. Shoot, we can't dig ourselves in a hole early."
The Green and White have a bye week and then travel to Edmonton to take on the Elks on Saturday, September 27. Teagan Witko, Justin Dunk, and Wes Cates bring you the pre-game show at 2 p.m. Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder have the game call at 5 p.m. Listen to our detailed coverage on 620 CKRM Co-operators Rider Broadcast Network.
