Dickenson reflects on first year as Riders’ head coach

Craig Dickenson’s first season as a head coach resulted in a nomination for the CFL’s coach-of-the-year award.

His first off-season as a head coach is going to be filled with learning.

“I’ll talk to some coaches in the off-season — other head coaches in this league, other head coaches down south — and just ask them, ‘What do you do to get better in the off-season?’ ” the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ bench boss said earlier this week.

“One of my key priorities this off-season is to watch a lot of tape — watch a lot of tape on offence, watch a lot of tape on defence and just see if I can get a little bit more of a background on what we’re doing and hopefully be able to help the offensive and defensive coaches out a little bit more.”

Dickenson was a longtime special-teams co-ordinator in the CFL before he was hired in January to replace the departed Chris Jones as the Roughriders’ head coach.

It was Dickenson’s first opportunity to lead a team — and it turned out well.

Saskatchewan finished first in the West Division standings with a 13-5-0 record, the franchise’s highest win total since it won 14 times in 1970. The first-place finish was the Roughriders’ first since 2009.

The Green and White earned home-field advantage in the division final, but lost 20-13 to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sunday.

Dickenson is in Calgary for the Grey Cup, but only as a finalist for a CFL award. Three members of the Saskatchewan organization — Dickenson, quarterback Cody Fajardo (most outstanding player) and linebacker Cameron Judge (most outstanding Canadian) — will find out Thursday night if voters chose them for their respective awards.

Since Sunday’s game, Dickenson has been reflecting on his first season.

He admitted there were moments during the campaign that didn’t go well — “I had a couple of situations I wish I had a do-over on,” Dickenson said — and he hopes to learn from those as he prepares for Year 2.

In Dickenson’s mind, the salary cap the CFL put on teams’ staffs played a role in the struggles he had. With fewer assistants, he felt the need to stay involved in special teams.

“Because of that, I was concerned sometimes with what was going on on third down, which group was in the game, and I lost track of the time for a split-second or I missed a substitution that I normally wouldn’t miss,” Dickenson said. “That’s the challenge, but I’ll have to look at it.

“I’m looking at making a few tweaks to the staff, maybe trying to get (assistant coach Terry Eisler) a little more involved on special teams so I can step back and hopefully do a little better job of clock management.”

That was the one area where Dickenson felt he struggled in 2019. But the “team over self” mentality he instituted seemed to resonate with his players, many of whom spoke glowingly during the season about his approach.

Dickenson and general manager Jeremy O’Day demonstrated their faith in the players after the team started the season at 1-3-0, and that faith was rewarded with 12 wins in the team’s final 14 regular-season games.

“We felt good about the group we had in that locker room,” Dickenson said. “The fact that we lost two close games early in the season wasn’t going to change that.

“By giving them the message that, ‘Hey, we’re not going to panic just because we lose a game here or there and we’re not going to jump over the moon if we win a few games,’ that consistency, that level-headedness and that stay-the-course mindset helped pull that locker room together.”

Dickenson said the team’s resiliency was its biggest strength during the season, a trait which he thought would be shown again in Sunday’s game. The Roughriders drove deep into Winnipeg territory in the last minute, but Fajardo’s last-play pass hit the crossbar and cemented the Bombers’ victory.

The Roughriders’ biggest issue in 2019, at least in Dickenson’s mind, was their inability to produce consistently in the red zone. That was evident Sunday, when Saskatchewan failed to score a touchdown despite numerous trips inside the Bombers’ 20-yard line.

Dickenson admitted it’ll likely take him until next week to get over the loss — “The Grey Cup’s always tough when you feel like you might have been able to be there yourself,” he said — but then he’ll sit down with O’Day to plan for the 2020 season.

Having a GM, a head coach and a starting quarterback among those under contract for the next season provides some stability for the Roughriders. Asked if he appreciates that, Dickenson joked: “I do — because I’m one of the three.”

“It’s a good feeling to know that we’ve got hopefully the foundation in place,” he added, “and we can just go from there.”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Britton Gray