Football has long been known as a game of inches. In Week 11 of the Canadian Football League season, the Saskatchewan Roughriders showed it can also be a game of seconds.
With just over a minute to go in the first half of Saturday’s game against Hamilton, the Riders were facing a second down and seven situation at the Tiger-Cats 26-yard line. The Green and White broke their huddle and, twenty-six seconds later, score their second touchdown.
Breaking down those 26 seconds, there’s a lot to digest.
Offensive coordinator Marc Mueller sends in a play via wireless communication to quarterback Trevor Harris, Harris relays the play to the offence in the huddle, the team then breaks the huddle and approaches the line of scrimmage.
The offence then runs a stutter motion where Harris calls out a cadence but stops the play before snapping the football. Harris then begins communicating with the offence using his voice and a motion with his arms like he’s about to putt a golf ball, he then returns to his spot in the backfield. The ball is snapped, Tommy Nield streaks down the sidelines where he catches a pass and survives contact from a Hamilton defender for a touchdown. Nield then joins the offence’s celebratory dance in the end zone.
Sounds easy, right? Nield said it all comes down to understanding what is going to happen before the snap of the ball.
“We do a dummy waggle to get the defence to move and see what kind of coverage we're gonna get. After that, Trevor makes the adjustment. We communicate it to all the receivers, then the ball snaps and we roll.”
Harris agrees that a lot happens on the play before the ball is snapped.
“Without revealing the secrets, it's preparation from Marc (Mueller), and certain times in a game where we can get to certain looks, he's done a great job of leading our offence and helping us understand what we're trying to do against certain looks. He's the one that dials them up and lets us know what will be open and when, so we go out there, trust it and execute.”
Nield said that execution comes from familiarity with the playbook.
“The play he had checked to, we ran it a bunch of times before. There’s a number of plays that could have been, but the key part of it is the communication across the board, everyone on the same page. Usually, when everyone's on the same page, that's when good plays happen.”
The first-year Riders’ receiver also said clear communication has to be on point, like a favourite campfire game.
“Trevor communicates it and instantly it's like ‘telephone’ — you're telling the dude next to you what the play is, making sure we're all on the same page and we're playing fast when the ball's snapped.”
Harris agrees the communication has to be on point, which he acknowledges isn’t always verbal.
“It's gigantic because communication is everything, I communicate with our receivers by the location of the football a lot of times with which shoulder I throw it, that is telling them where to run with it after the catch. Everything’s about communication, if we're communicating at a high level, understanding what we're trying to do, then it's always gonna make everything easier.”
Nield alluded to the campfire game of telephone, where a message is sent through a series of whispers to players who often mishear and misinterpret the message, which he said clearly didn’t happen on his scoring play.
“It's not like telephone in that way. You definitely don't want to tell them the wrong thing. It’s like a telephone game, but you're actually being told the right message every time.”
Following the communication, Harris said it comes down to execution.
“I was waiting on Tommy to get out of his break or get out of his double move, so I was just trying to hold the safety long enough to where I could laser it to him on the seam route. They switched and did a good job with it, I was trying to hold the safety, so I had to double hitch it a little bit, and then throw it. I knew Tommy was gonna have to take a hit, he ate it, held on to it, and got everybody fired up.”
A lot can happen in 26 seconds, and for the Saskatchewan Roughriders, it led to a touchdown pass and reception from start to finish.
