Taylor Shire
Regina Leader-Post
Sitting in front of reporters during his year-end media availability last November, Saskatchewan Roughriders general manager Jeremy O’Day said, “I truly feel like this is an ascending team.”
Turns out, he was right.
After hiring Corey Mace to serve as the CFL club’s next head coach, the Roughriders took a step forward last year after back-to-back seasons of missing the playoffs.
And while they lost in the West final, O’Day said last November, “it was a step within that grand plan of winning a championship.”
This season, after clinching first place in the West division this season under Mace, the Roughriders beat the B.C. Lions in the West final before defeating the Montreal Alouettes for Saskatchewan’s first Grey Cup title since 2013.
On Tuesday during his annual year-end media availability, O’Day reflected on the year that was.
“I think it’s easy to kind of focus on the end of it, but there’s so much that goes into winning a championship and the amount of work from the players and the staff,” said O’Day, who also won Grey Cups with Saskatchewan in 2013 as assistant GM and in 2007 as a player. “I think going through training camp, you always kind of get a sense of the team that you have.
“And, you know, you don’t have a crystal ball to say, ‘Hey, this is going to be a championship team at the end of the year,’ but we certainly felt confident in our team.
“It was interesting. A lot of the players just had a feeling even from the start. (They) maybe vocalized it a couple times, but I think there was just a sense of what was to come.”
While the Roughriders won their first four games of the season, it wasn’t until sweeping the home-and-home series with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers when O’Day said a different feeling developed.
“We’ve lost to Winnipeg quite often in big games and so to say that wasn’t important for us to win the series versus Winnipeg, I’d be lying,” said O’Day. “I think that’s kind of when we had the feeling of like we’re going to take a run at this and then it was just a matter of winning enough games to get first place.
“And being able to do that a couple weeks before the playoffs was huge.”
The Roughriders clinched first place in the division with two games to spare, which ultimately set them up for success in the West final, which is a game they want to be hosting on an annual basis.
“We talked about it last year, after we lost in Winnipeg, that it was overly important for us to get that first place and to get a home playoff game,” said O’Day. “And you can see the difference that that had.
“Having a home game for the Western final was a big deal.”
Now, as the Roughriders look to defend their title in 2026, O’Day is tasked with bringing back as many of the pending free agents as possible, which includes quarterback and Grey Cup MVP Trevor Harris, who is turning 40 in May.
“We’ve had discussions,” said O’Day. “We’d love to have Trevor back, and I think he knows that.
“It’s just a matter of us getting back on the phone and trying to work something out.
“We’ll be talking again real shortly. I don’t get the sense that he’s done playing football, but I certainly don’t want to speak on his behalf.
“He had a great year and stayed healthy and finished the year strong, obviously, with winning the championship. So we’d love to have them back. It’s just a matter of having a conversation with him and then once we get down the road, to figure out a contract.” Like most off-seasons, the Roughriders have several other big-name free agents who are also without contracts for 2026. However, O’Day is hoping that number is much smaller when free agency opens in February.
Those players include running back A.J. Ouellette, offensive linemen Jermarcus Hardrick, Jacob Brammer and Trevon Tate, receivers KeeSean Johnson, Dohnte Meyers, Samuel Emilus and Kian Schaffer-Baker as well as defenders Malik Carney, Micah Johnson, A.J. Allen, C.J. Reavis and Tevaughn Campbell.
“Every year, regardless of the situation, you’re going to evaluate every position, and that’s what we’re doing right now,” said O’Day. “Is there ways that we can even improve on what we did last year?
“But the fact of the matter is, we really like a lot of the players that are on our team and we’re going to try to get as many back.
“When you win, and especially when you win a Grey Cup, it becomes more difficult because everyone just saw us win and how we did it, and saw players play really good football.
“And you know, there’s some teams that didn’t have good years that want to add players that come from a Grey Cup team, right? We understand that, and that’s part of the process and everything gets ironed out as you go. But for the most part, we’d like to have as many as we can have back. But again, a lot plays into that.
“I certainly think we have a group that we can bring them back, and there will be some tweaks that have to happen, but we certainly feel good about our coaching staff and their commitment to our organization.
“It is an exciting part of the year when you can start putting pieces back together. But it’s going to be give and take from both sides.”
