Riders not renewing Dickenson’s contract, O’Day signs extension

For a second straight season, a seven-game losing streak sunk the Saskatchewan Roughriders — and this time the captain went down with the ship.

The CFL organization announced Monday it would not be renewing head coach Craig Dickenson’s contract after it expires at the end of the season.

“It just comes down to what everyone else sees: When you get on a skid and you can’t get out of it,” Riders general manager Jeremy O’Day said during a media conference at Mosaic Stadium. “The good teams don’t lose more than a couple games in a row and the great teams don’t lose more than a game in a row. You get on that skid and you can’t get out of that. It feels like you’re running in place and it’s just frustrating.

“It wasn’t the effort of the coaches or the effort of the players,” added O’Day, who signed a three-year contract extension. “It’s just we weren’t able to pull out of it. I just thought it was important to change who was giving the message and change the direction.”

Dickenson was head coach of the Roughriders for five seasons, including the 2020 campaign that was cancelled due to COVID-19.

Saskatchewan posted a 34-34-0 regular-season record under Dickenson and reached the playoffs — and the West Division final — in each of his first two seasons. The Roughriders went 6-12-0 in each of the past two campaigns and missed the playoffs both years.

Dickenson was named the Roughriders’ head coach in January of 2019 after Chris Jones left the CFL to join the coaching staff of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns.

Dickenson had been Saskatchewan’s special-teams co-ordinator in 2011 and 2012 before serving in that capacity again from 2016 through ’18.

“I want to thank Coach Dickenson for all of his hard work and dedication. He really worked his butt off the last number of years but he gave 10 years of his career to the Roughriders and he is an honourable person and worked his butt off and I just wanted to thank him for all of his hard work and dedication to the Roughriders,” O’Day said.

“He handled (the news) the same way that any of you would expect Coach Dickenson to handle himself as a person. He’s just a great man and I wanted to thank him.”

In Dickenson’s first season as head coach, the Roughriders went 13-5-0 and finished in first place in the West Division. Saskatchewan lost to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the West final.

After the 2020 season was cancelled, Dickenson led the Roughriders to a 9-5-0 record and second place in the West in 2021. They again advanced to the West final and, again, lost to Winnipeg.

A seven-game losing streak to end the 2022 regular season doomed Saskatchewan to a fourth-place finish in the West.

Despite the downturn from the previous season, Dickenson and O’Day were retained for 2023 to complete the final year of their contracts.

This season, an injury to veteran quarterback Trevor Harris forced the Roughriders to go with young QBs Mason Fine and Jake Dolegala. Saskatchewan again suffered seven straight losses to end the regular season — including Saturday’s 29-26 loss to the Toronto Argonauts — and again missed the playoffs.

“We had an opportunity to make the playoffs all the way up until the last minute or couple seconds of the game,” O’Day said. “At a certain point in the season when we were starting to go on a skid at the end of the year, you’re starting to think about (a coaching change) a little bit more because we’re just not having success on the field.

“I don’t ever want to be on a team where you’re hoping to get into the playoffs or you’re having to scrape and claw to get into the playoffs. That’s not the goal of any organization and certainly not this one.

“At the middle of the season, it looked like we had turned the corner for a positive when we had played B.C. and the Labour Day game. We were playing decent football – not great but decent football – and it looked like we would improve as the year went on.

“When we looked at our schedule for the second half, it appeared we had an opportunity to make a run at it. As that (losing streak) goes on, it becomes a little bit more clear we don’t have the right mix.”

Despite O’Day also being a major cog in the machine that has seen the Riders regress the past two seasons, president-CEO Craig Reynolds believes the current general manager is the right person to get the football team back on track in 2024 and get the team back to the playoffs.

“Jeremy O’Day is an outstanding general manager in our league. I’ve had a lot of opportunity to talk to players in our league, players on our team, our coaches, other personnel in the league and the one thing that comes through over and over again is the amount of respect Jeremy has – how they respect him as a leader and how they respect him as a general manager,” Reynolds said.

“There’s probably a half-dozen things a general manager needs to be good at to be successful in this league and Jeremy is the best I’ve seen in all those areas. Chief among those is roster construction. I think Jeremy has built a very talented roster than can win games in our league. Obviously there are always areas to improve that roster and Jeremy will work hard to improve that in the off-season.”

O’Day will be entering his 26th season with the Roughriders in 2024 and his sixth as vice-president of football operations and GM.

He began his Roughriders career as a player in 1999 and joined the football operations staff in 2011. He was promoted to his current role in January of 2019 after Jones’ departure.

So with the focus now shifting to 2024, O’Day’s first task now becomes finding the person to lead the group from the bench.

“The search for the new head coach of the Roughriders will start immediately,” he said. “That process will happen over the next number of weeks. I can’t give you a definite time of when we will have our head coach in place because we will have to go through the process with requesting permission to talk to staff members from other teams.”

Fans react to the moves

One fan 980 CJME spoke to Monday after the news broke seemed to support Dickenson.

“I think we could have used him for another year,” the fan said.

Another supporter felt that Dickenson had to go.

“I think he was a great coach for the team but I think it was time to move on,” that fan said.

One member of Rider Nation said they were surprised the team kept O’Day, while another suggested the GM had earned another shot.

“I think he did enough this year to try and turn the team around — bringing in Harris and rebuilding that offensive line and what not — but the team still didn’t gel,” the fan said.

Another supporter thought more heads should have rolled.

“I think top down,” that fan said. “Start at the president, (let go) O’Day — all three, I think. Just clean house.”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Roman Hayter