Jeremy O’Day recalls Saskatchewan Roughriders’ controversial trade for ‘all-time great’ Jorgen Hus

Photo: Michael Scraper/3DownNation. All rights reserved.

It’s draft season on both sides of the border, which means you’ll probably hear terms like “positional value” thrown around a lot — the idea that some spots on the football field are just more important than others.

11 years ago, the Saskatchewan Roughriders elected to ignore that principle in a big way by trading receiver Corey Watson for long snapper Jorgen Hus. In the aftermath of his retirement, they remain entirely satisfied with the results of that move.

“A very astute general manager named Brendan Taman traded for Jorgen. If I recall correctly, at the time there was some questions from our fan base and maybe from some of you in the room of why we were trading a starting Canadian receiver for a long snapper,” current general manager Jeremy O’Day reminded the Regina media on Thursday. “Little did we know that Jorgen eventually became the longest-standing Roughrider of our 2025 Grey Cup team.”

It is difficult to imagine Hus wearing any other shade of green, but the Saskatoon native’s CFL rights were initially held by Edmonton after they took him in the fourth round of the 2013 CFL Draft. After he spent two seasons bouncing around the NFL, the Riders elected to get aggressive in bringing him home, shipping away Watson and a second-round pick to acquire Hus and a third-round pick.

The Riders had no long-term attachment to Watson, as the Concordia product had been obtained in a trade with Winnipeg just a few months previous, but he was a proven commodity and ended up playing five more seasons as a productive starting pass catcher in the CFL. Fans rarely watch long snappers and had a tough time understanding the decision, especially when the Riders went 3-15 and Taman was fired. However, Saskatchewan had known for some time that Hus could be special.

“Shortly after I retired from football, I remember scouting one of my first games. It was actually a Rams game in the old Mosaic, and I remember coming back into the stadium and saying, ‘The Rams, they have a heck of a long snapper,'” O’Day recalled of the University of Regina product. “I don’t know if that was a good thing or not that I pointed out that the Rams had a really good long snapper, but it was really evident that Jorgen was very good at what he did, and we spotted him very early on in his career.”

Hus’ decade-long career with the Riders matched that first evaluation. He suited up in 177 games and sent the ball spinning backwards a total of 1,935 times, never getting noticed for all the right reasons.

“I kind of walked around the building asking my staff and people who have been here for a while if they ever remember a bad snap from Jorgen, and none of us can recall a time where the snap influenced the kick or the punt in a negative way,” O’Day said. “Now he’ll probably say differently, because he’s a perfectionist, but I don’t recall ever being in a game saying, ‘Oh, that was a bad snap. We missed that one.’ He was just very consistent. I guess you could say he finished his career being perfect.”

True to O’Day’s prediction, Hus wouldn’t go that far, citing a singular example of an erroneous snap from his illustrious tenure in Riderville.

“I had one that wasn’t very good. It was high. (Punter Josh) Bartel had to go up for it, and then him and Brett (Lauther) were lateraling it back and forth all the way till mid-field,” he recalled. “At the time, it was obviously not funny, but we’ve had some good laughs about it since. I think it’s actually been deleted from Rider history, like it never came up.”

At 36 years old, Hus’ streak of incredible efficiency could have continued. O’Day all but begged him to stay, even joking that he could still change his mind during the retirement announcement, and quarterback Trevor Harris put a bug in his ear about chasing history with back-to-back Grey Cups.

However, the budding mortgage broker has known for two years that his time was coming to an end, and a championship was the only thing left to accomplish.

“I knew we had unfinished business here. I loved what Coach Mace has done here with this team and the culture, and I knew we had a really good chance of winning, and so it wasn’t too hard to want to come back last year. But, during last season, I knew that it was probably going to be my last year,” he explained. “I’ve got stuff outside football pulling me away. I had a surgery too, so that doesn’t help, but I think the decision was made before that. It’s been a long, fun career. It’s been over a decade. We won the Grey Cup. We’re champs. My cup is full.”

Hus leaves a lasting legacy on the field, as well as off of it, as he’s long been one of the most active Riders with the team’s charitable foundation and won the Jake Gaudaur Trophy in 2024 for his strength, perseverance, courage, comradeship and contribution to Canadian communities. The team may never find another snapper worthy of paying such a high price tag.

“Jorgen is very much widely known as one of the best snappers in the CFL,” O’Day summarized. “Maybe one of the all-time greats for the Riders and possibly in the CFL.”