It was one of the major topics of conversation all week leading up to the CFL game between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Ottawa Redblacks.<\/p>\n
Just what were the Green and White going to do with a receiving corps that had lost a pair of potential 1,000 yard receivers to injury in the past week?<\/p>\n
The final answer proved to be the same as their answer any time the question was asked: next man up.<\/p>\n
Quarterback Trevor Harris threw for over 400 yards for the third time this season, Johnny Johnson III, Dylan Djete and D\u2019Sean Mimbs all had solid games catching the ball, and KeeSean Johnson was KeeSean Johnson. And the end result was a 42-20 victory at Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I told you guys yesterday, this is a group that\u2019s never going to flinch,\u201d Harris said in the aftermath. \u201cI believe in those guys and it\u2019s my job as the quarterback to get them at the top of their routes and deliver the mail at the right time and let them do their thing. And they did their thing all night.\u201d<\/p>\n
A good number of eyes were on Djete at wide receiver. Stepping in for the injured Sam Emilus, the rookie pass catcher would go on to hall in four catches for 53 yards, including an 18-yard catch for his first CFL touchdown in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was awesome, that\u2019s what it\u2019s about,\u201d Harris said. \u201cTo see him catch that in route and shed one and get in the end zone was super awesome. Just seeing the smile on the young guys\u2019 faces when they score that first touchdown is so cool\u2026 I\u2019m just so proud of him for doing the work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Riders wasted no time getting Djete the ball, as he caught a pass on their first play of the game. That was a big moment for the Levis, Que., product as it helped settle him down and get into the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to (offensive coordinator Marc Mueller) for that,\u201d Djete said. \u201cIt was just a breath of fresh air, like \u2018all right, I got my first one, now we good\u2019. It felt good, it just felt natural.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then came the touchdown, and the biggest moment thus far of his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means everything,\u201d Djete said. \u201cWe talked about it this week, I\u2019ve been preparing myself. I\u2019ve been going through a lot with the injury, but mentally I was there. When the opportunity came I just had to do what I had to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rookie Johnny Johnson III also had an outstanding outing, catching all seven passes that came his way and going for 117 yards on the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a stud, man,\u201d lauded Harris. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of times the last few games where he\u2019ll kill a guy on a route on the backside and unfortunately we read the other side of the field. He\u2019s a dynamic receiver and he knows we\u2019re going to be leaning on him while we have two of our big guns out. He\u2019s just happy to do his part and he\u2019s a really good guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s KeeSean. There was little question that the passing game was likely going to revolve around the third-year veteran and 1,000-yard receiver, and that was certainly the case. He\u2019d end up leading the team with 11 catches for 133 yards while adding another touchdown to his ledger.<\/p>\n
Johnson had spent a good part of the week working with his younger compatriots and wasn\u2019t surprised to see them step up alongside himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see the guys come out every day at practice and it’s no let off, no matter who’s in the game,\u201d he said. \u201cYou guys can see it tonight, there’s guys that came in and made plays. We have confidence in everybody in our room, we hold ourselves to a high standard.\u201d
For his part, Harris was pretty much expecting his veteran receiver to rise to the occasion and wasn\u2019t surprised in the least when that\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told KeeSean before the game, there are times where you gotta lean into people like him and myself and we\u2019ve gotta make sure we\u2019re making plays to give this team momentum and belief,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s who KeeSean is, he\u2019s an elite receiver in this league. He\u2019ll probably tell you about the two he dropped today, but we\u2019re always going to go right back to that guy. He\u2019s elite.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Roughriders are now off until Tuesday before beginning preparation for their next outing, which takes place on Saturday, Aug. 15 in Hamilton against the Tiger-Cats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was one of the major topics of conversation all week leading up to the CFL game between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[5443,5441,5442,3016,5440,61,1242,5434,5438,5437,5436,5435,5439],"class_list":["post-161641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-100-year-celebration","tag-620-ckrm","tag-ckrm","tag-country-music","tag-countrys-greatest-hits","tag-ottawa","tag-radio","tag-regina-news","tag-reigna-pats","tag-rider-radio","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan-sports","tag-sportscage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}