Taylor Shire
Regina Leader-Post
It’s a battle of the top two teams in the CFL in Week 11.
On Saturday (1 p.m., TSN) at Mosaic Stadium, the Saskatchewan Roughriders (7-1) will host the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (6-3) in the second and final meeting of the season between the two teams, who sit atop the standings in their respective divisions.
“Incredible matchup,” said Roughriders head coach Corey Mace, whose team returned to practice on Tuesday following a bye week. “They’re a good team. We believe we’re a good team, and we know it’s going to be a battle.
“But we’re playing with one extra here and the fans are showing up for this one, so it’s going to be fun.”
Prior to Saskatchewan’s second bye week of the season, the Green and White put together their most complete performance of the year in a 34-6 victory over the Montreal Alouettes. It was Saskatchewan’s third straight victory after losing to the Calgary Stampeders in Week 6.
“How we performed the last game, I thought to this point, was the closest thing that we’ve looked to the version of what we want to be,” said Mace. “And still lots of room to grow.”
Despite the overall clean performance, quarterback Trevor Harris — who threw for 289 yards and two touchdowns — was still critical of how he played against the Alouettes.
“I still feel like I didn’t play very well against Montreal,” said Harris. “I wanted a couple plays back, which shoot, I think every game you watch, every game you play as a quarterback, you’re never going to come away and think you did perfectly.
“And so we just want to make sure we’re continuing to strive for greatness because this group has more and I think there’s another level that we can unlock, and I think that we’re making our way there.”
In fact, that mentality and continuous desire of trying to improve is what’s driving the group, according to Harris.
“We’re trending where we need to be, but we still have a ways to go,” said Harris. “If we want to sit here and pat ourselves on the back for being 7-1, there’s no seven-win teams getting into playoffs.
“Nobody’s over here exhaling or letting off the accelerator. It’s full-blast go because we’ve got boxes we want to check as a team.
“We’ve had a good start so far but we want to make sure that we’re trending in the right direction, not going stale and playing our best ball already.”
After losing to Saskatchewan 28-23 in Week 2 of the CFL season, the Tiger-Cats rattled off six straight victories before losing 41-38 in overtime to the B.C. Lions last week.
While Harris has been one of the CFL’s best quarterbacks this season, Hamilton’s Bo Levi Mitchell is leading the way among CFL pivots with 21 touchdown passes to just three interceptions this season.
In their first meeting of the season, Mitchell, 35 passed for 336 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Last week against the Lions, Mitchell threw for 305 yards and three touchdowns.
In fact, Mitchell’s strong play this season resulted in some praise from Harris, who came into the CFL the same year as Mitchell in 2012.
“I’ve always admired Bo from afar watching him play,” said Harris, 39, who threw for 295 yards with one touchdown and one interception in the first meeting between the two teams. “He makes the game look easy; never gets sped up.
“His touchdown-reception ratio is as good as I’ve seen up here since I’ve been up here this year. And he’s done a tremendous job kind of reinventing himself in terms of always wanting to take shots and go push the ball down the field no matter what, to taking what the defence gives him. And when you find quarterbacks that can do that and take shots down the field, that becomes a problem. And so you can see that he’s become a problem across the league.
“I have a lot of admiration and respect for Bo but at the same time, I’m not going to be too worried about what he’s doing in the game. I’ve just got to make sure that I’m operating our offence as best we can and going against a really good defence.”
Injury report
The Roughriders had a smaller than normal injury report as the team returned from the bye week.
Returner Mario Alford (hip) continued to sit out while offensive lineman Daniel Johnson (shoulder) was limited. Receiver Shawn Bane Jr. (knee) continued to practise fully with the backups while offensive lineman Noah Zerr (back) was also a full participant.
Saskatchewan still has 11 players on the six-game injured list.
Roughriders add Global
On Monday, the Roughriders signed Global defensive lineman Sylvain Yondjouen.
The 6-foot-4, 260-pound native of Ruisbroek, Belgium was Saskatchewan’s first-round pick in the 2025 Global draft. After spending six collegiate seasons at Georgia Tech (2019-24), where he had 76 tackles, seven pass breakups, seven deflections and six sacks, Yondjouen attending an NFL mini-camp with the Carolina Panthers earlier this year.
