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The Saskatchewan Roughriders are embracing the expectations put on the team for 2025.
In 2024, plenty of question marks surrounded the CFL club heading into the season — a new head coach in Corey Mace, quarterback Trevor Harris was coming off a season-ending knee injury and the club hadn’t been in the playoffs since 2021.
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Now in 2025 and on the cusp of a new season, things are different in Saskatchewan. The club brought back all nine of their West Division all-CFLers, Mace is in his second season, Harris is healthy and the team made it all the way to the West Final.
So now the expectations of is Rider Nation are largely now in line with the players’ own expectations — the team could make it to the Grey Cup for the first time since 2013.
“I think you embrace it,” Harris said. “Ultimately, we have different expectations than anybody. It’s about building that pot and great team from day one. I think a lot of people talk about expectations or whatever, but ultimately it’s how we perform and how we build and how we grow as a team each and every day.
“If you have expectations, that means you have done something right in the past and you’re going in the right direction.”
Harris isn’t the only one who knows that expectations are a good thing for the team.
“In life, if no one expects nothing of you then that’s your answer of who you are,” said offensive lineman Trevon Tate. “People expected things out of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant because they showed they were great from the start.
“People from the outside can see that you have familiar names around here on offence and defence. When you see familiar names come to the team and the same team come back together, it allowed expectations to be a lot higher last year. We made it to the West Final with two hurt offensive linemen, throughout the season we had more offensive linemen get hurt than I have ever played with in my life.
“Just to make it that far with a team like that, you expect this year to come back and put it all together.”
The Riders will open the CFL regular season on Thursday against the Ottawa Redblacks. Kickoff for the game is set for 7 p.m. at Mosaic Stadium. The Green Zone pregame show begins at 5 p.m.
Offensive line injuries
Another player has suffered an injury for the Riders, though it doesn’t appear to be a serious one. Offensive lineman Jacob Brammer tweaked his back in practice on Sunday and wasn’t participating on Tuesday.
Despite that, Mace said he feels confident Brammer will be ready to go for the game.
“We’re just being smart with it so he can be available for game day,” Mace said.
With Brammer not practising, Zack Fry moved to right guard and Tate moved into left guard — a position he has never started a game at in his pro career. Rookie Payton Collins was taking the reps at left tackle.
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