Just when it looked like the Saskatchewan Roughriders were about to lose another division final and remain one of the CFL's most cursed teams, they found a way to pull Saturday's game out of the fire and earn a berth in the 112th Gray Cup in Winnipeg.
Down four points with just over a minute to play, Trevor Harris led his team on an incredible 76-yard drive that ended with a touchdown pass to Tommy Nield, whose name will now forever live in Raiders infamy.
Saskatchewan's 24-21 win over the BC Lions was hardly a masterpiece—to be fair, the Riders probably could have and should have lost the game. But that's Roughrider football: things rarely go according to plan, which can drive fans crazy, but it also means there's never a dull moment in Roughriderville.
Here are the good, the bad and the stupid moments from the Riders West finals win.
good
The Riders didn't have much to go on in this game. Their best player was running back AJ Ouellette, who rushed 17 times for 113 yards, but even he made an untimely mistake when he got a little greedy on his second attempt of the game in the third quarter.
The best part of this match for the Riders was their mental toughness. It wasn't their night in almost every aspect of the game, but they fought until the end and found a way through.
It was a particularly difficult night for quarterback Trevor Harris, who momentarily found himself staring down another year without a trip to the Gray Cup. He then managed to secure the elusive game-winner he had been looking for since coming to the CFL.
I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that Harris needed this momentum to change the narrative of his career. The big one always eluded him. He's not like Nathan Rourke, who has all the tools to put a team on his back and win a game single-handedly. Harris needed everything to be okay, and on his team's main show, it finally happened, many years later.
As always, Harris' numbers look good on paper at the end of the night. He went 26 of 38 for 305 yards and two touchdowns, but if the Riders don't get the win on their final possession, it will be another big loss on Harris' resume.
This team has been through adversity time and time again and it paid off this evening as they were able to pull it off once again.
Bad
Honestly, there are a lot of bad things about this game.
Even though the defense held the Lions offense to 21 points, there should have been fewer points given how many seconds and long passes the Lions converted. Many of them came as Rourke only faced a three-man attack, giving him all the time in the world. There was also a huge turnover early in the fourth quarter on a Keon Hatcher touchdown.
The offense was ineffective most of the night, the receivers had serious drop issues, and offensive coordinator Mark Mueller still should have used his best player more.
With that said, the worst mistake of the game came late in the fourth quarter when head coach Corey Mays decided to kick a 12-yard field goal to turn a one-possession game into, well, one possession game.
I know, I know—the Riders ended up winning in part because of those three points, but allowing Rourke to return to the field in improved position was a huge risk.
To the defense's credit, they stepped up and made not one, but two stops to get the ball back for the offense.
Ironically, Saskatchewan's only other touchdown of the game came on third down at the BC three-yard line in the third quarter.
Sometimes good decisions don't work out, and sometimes bad decisions do – and in this case, the Riders did the latter.
Blunt
Have you ever experienced a strange case of déjà vu? The Riders definitely did that in this game.
Perhaps you remember early last season when these two teams played at Mosaic Stadium when AJ Allen intercepted the ball after it bounced off a Lions receiver and was then accidentally tossed into the air by a teammate?
On Saturday night at Mosaic Stadium it was the same. This time the beneficiary of the circus act was Marcus Sales.
This happened at least three times.
— DM =^) (@jm539581.bsky.social) November 8, 2025, 7:26 pm
Not only was it the strangest play of the game, but it was also an important one for the Green and White as the Lions were threatening to score after a setback in Ouellette a few plays earlier.
This proves that in football, skill and coaching are just as important as luck.
