Huskies, Rams open Canada West football playoffs on road
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"The thing with the playoffs is every play gets amplified," said Huskies head coach Scott Flory.
The Manny Show is getting renewed for at least one more episode in 2019.
Saskatchewan Roughriders slotback Emmanuel Arceneaux will once again be added to the starting lineup as the CFL team takes on the Edmonton Eskimos at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday. Kickoff is set for 5 p.m.
“(Arceneaux) practises well, he prepares very hard and we felt like he deserved a shot to play,” Saskatchewan head coach Craig Dickenson said.
“He was playing well when we sat him and we feel like he might give us a little boost. It wasn’t that (slotback Jordan Williams-Lambert) wasn’t playing well but we’re going to make this move and see what happens.”
Arceneaux has suited up for nine games in his first season in Saskatchewan. He joined the team in the off-season after recovering from a torn ACL suffered while he was a member of the B.C. Lions.
Arceneaux last started in a 41-16 win over the Toronto Argonauts on Sept. 28 and recorded his best game of the year — two catches for 72 yards and a touchdown.
The team elected to start Williams-Lambert in Arceneaux’s place after that game. Williams-Lambert, who re-signed with the Roughriders after returning from an NFL tryout, recorded five catches for 57 yards in three games.
“(Williams-Lambert) has got to play a little better and he knows it. He’s not playing poorly and it’s a chemistry thing a little bit too. We feel like we were playing a little better as a unit with Manny out there,” Dickenson said.
“We were asking a lot of (Williams-Lambert) coming back from the NFL. It was a new position for him so we’re going to give him a little more time to learn the offence.”
The Roughriders have yet to meet the Eskimos this season, but Arceneaux said that doesn’t affect how they prepare for the game.
“It’s really not about the other team. We focus all the time on getting one per cent better but right now it’s about playing Saskatchewan football and that standard of football that we want,” Arceneaux said. “We’ve just got to come out clicking on all three phases … As long as we’re out there executing and doing our role, we should be good.
“Go out there and play football and do what got you here. Ain’t no game bigger than the next game, just a sense of urgency that needs to be there.”
The Roughriders could also get back left tackle Takoby Cofield, who has been out since July 1 with a hamstring injury. Dickenson said the team hasn’t decided if it will go with Cofield or Terran Vaughn for Saturday’s game.
“(Vaughn’s) one of my good friends here, a guy that I think a lot of, and he went out there and played so well (that) you get an opportunity to come back and you know you’ve got to play your butt off,” Cofield said. “He’s out there playing well and you don’t want to stop that, but I get my opportunity so I’ve got to go put it on the field.”
The Roughriders are also closing in on clinching a home playoff date. If the Winnipeg Blue Bombers lose to the Calgary Stampeders on Friday or the Roughriders win on Saturday, the Green and White will earn the right to stage a playoff game at Mosaic Stadium.
The Roughriders still have a shot at top spot in the West, but they need Calgary to lose to either Winnipeg or B.C. next week.
Notes: Defensive lineman Micah Johnson (ankle) is expected to return to the Roughriders’ lineup Saturday … Former Roughriders quarterback Zach Collaros is to start for the Bombers against the Stampeders. On July 31, Saskatchewan traded Collaros to the Argos, who dealt him to Winnipeg on Oct. 9.