Trevor Harris had ‘hard time’ accepting Riders decision to sit him in regular-season finale

Photo: Tanner Piper/Piper Sports Photography/3DownNation. All rights reserved.

Sitting out the final week of the regular season is a tough pill to swallow for Trevor Harris.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ franchise quarterback will be relegated to bench-warming duties on Saturday, despite playoff seeding being on the line. Head coach Corey Mace announced the decision on Wednesday after taking a night to sleep on it, determining that his 40-year-old pivot needed the rest ahead of the postseason.

“It was ongoing, and I think that’s probably why he delayed announcing it, because I was pleading pretty hard,” Harris told the media. “I’ll be honest, usually, at this point in the season, if that happens, I’m okay with it. I had a hard time with it. I really want to play this week, but then you flip the page. I’ve done the best I can to help Jack (Coan) get ready to play in this game, and (Brayden) Schager get ready to play in this game, and prepare as if I’m playing against Edmonton, because hopefully, in a couple of weeks, we will be.”

Harris was honoured as Saskatchewan’s Most Outstanding Player award winner on Thursday, but has struggled in recent weeks as the Riders endured a four-game losing skid.

That ended last week with a victory over Montreal, though Harris arguably had his shakiest outing to date until he engineered a game-winning drive late in the fourth quarter. He ended the game 27-of-39 passing (69.2 percent) for 253 yards, one touchdown, and one interception.

“Football is about what’s needed to be done. Just because you throw for a certain amount of yards doesn’t mean you’re playing better football. Because you throw for a lower amount of yards doesn’t mean you’re not playing good football. Some of my better games have been lesser outputs,” Harris said.

“I feel like I’ve played pretty good football this year for the most part. But the most important thing is to make sure that we as a unit are playing our best heading into the playoffs, and if you just watch the fourth quarter of the last game, I thought we played good football.”

Harris will finish the 2026 campaign having completed 70.1 percent of his passes for 5,370 yards, 32 touchdowns, and 15 interceptions. He also rushed 15 times for 115 yards.

The native of Waldo, Ohio, matched a career-high with 615 passing attempts this year and set a new high in passing yards. Despite recent results, he insists that he isn’t losing steam.

“I feel good. Obviously, I think that throwing the football-wise, I feel like I’m throwing the football as good as I ever have. I’d like to push it down the field a little bit more, but physically, I’m able to run the football if I need to, and I think we all saw that,” he laughed, referencing a key 22-yard scamper on the deciding series against the Alouettes.

“I’ve had a bunch of messages — more messages about my run in the last game than I’ve gotten the entire season — about just how fast I am and stuff.”

Uncharacteristic bursts of speed aside, the decision by Mace to sit Harris this week indicates that he feels strongly that a reset is needed for the veteran, so much so that he is willing to jeopardize playoff positioning. Should the Riders lose to Edmonton with backup Jack Coan at the helm for the first time, they will be forced to cross over into the East Division. No CFL team has ever reached the Grey Cup via that path.

Harris, who earned Grey Cup MVP honours last year after leading Saskatchewan to its fifth-ever CFL championship, made the decision to return this year in the hopes of repeating. While achieving that goal may seem increasingly unlikely, he has no reservations about whether he made the right choice.

“I’ve never second-guessed that. I don’t think that’s something I look back on and say, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have come back,’ or ‘I’m glad I did.’ I make the decision and go out at full speed, regardless of what the situation is, and go out there and just try and glorify God and be the best version of myself that I can for my teammates,” he said.

“I’m gonna be ready to use my legs, arms, whatever it takes to win the football games in the playoffs to make sure that we get to keep working together and keep playing together and go out there and do the best we can to finish this year how we want to.”

The Saskatchewan Roughriders (9-8) will host the Edmonton Elks (13-4) at Mosaic Stadium on Saturday, October 24, with kickoff scheduled for 3:00 p.m. ET. The Elks are coming off a win over Winnipeg that clinched first place in the West Division, while Saskatchewan secured a playoff spot with a win over Montreal.

The game will be broadcast on TSN and RDS2 in Canada and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune in on 880 CHED in Edmonton and 620 CKRM in Regina.