The good, the bad, and the dumb of the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ 33-26 West Semi-Final loss to B.C.

Photo courtesy: Paul Yates/BC Lions.

The West Semi-Final started with a treat but ended as a trick for the Saskatchewan Roughriders as their 2026 season ended on Halloween night in Vancouver.

The 33-26 loss to the B.C. Lions was basically a microcosm of the Riders’ entire season — a hot start they couldn’t sustain, before stumbling to the finish line without much hope on offence.

One year after winning the team’s fifth Grey Cup, the Riders now enter an offseason full of questions. The answers to those questions will come in the coming days and weeks. For the time being, Rider fans are only left with the awful taste of defeat (which I imagine tastes like candy corn) in their mouth to end the season.

Here’s the good, the bad and the dumb of the Riders’ West Semi-Final loss.

The Good

Coming into this game, Saskatchewan’s best chance to win was to try and make it an ugly football game. Basically, try to recreate what would be an ugly winter weather football game outdoors inside the somewhat chilly but otherwise comfortable confines of BC Place Stadium.

For much of the first half of the game, the Green and White accomplished that goal.

They got a lot of pressure on Nathan Rourke on defence. They even created an early turnover on B.C.’s first play from scrimmage.

However, the most encouraging sign for the Riders early on was the effectiveness of their running game. What I liked the most about their game plan was a heavy rotation between Thomas Bertrand-Hudon and A.J. Ouellette.

The way the ground game has gone for the Riders this season, the best course of action was to try and keep everyone’s legs as fresh as possible. For the most part, the plan worked.

The Riders finished the game with 102 yards rushing. 80 of those yards came in the opening 30 minutes. The offence stayed on the field longer than we had seen in recent weeks, giving the defence a chance to compete against a high-powered Lions offence, and limiting the amount of time Nathan Rourke could be at the controls.

Like most things the Riders did well this season, they couldn’t produce the same results all night, but they did give themselves a chance.

The Bad

If the Riders were going to be successful in Vancouver, outside of controlling the clock and keeping their offence on the field, they also had to put at least 31 points on the board.

Even if you dominate the time of possession, Rourke and his offence can and will score points quickly. Expecting to score fewer than 30 points and win seemed unrealistic.

In the end, the Lions scored 33. The Riders lost because they kicked too many field goals. Of their 23 points, they only managed to reach the end zone once. To his credit, Brett Lauther went six-for-six on his field goal attempts to keep the team in it.

What really hurt the team was settling for two field goals amid a hot start. Late in the third quarter, Corey Mace settled for another field goal on third-and-two at the Lions 25-yard line.

Yes, points are important, but against the Lions you need to score touchdowns. The game was tied at 20 at that time, and a major could have swung the game in the Riders favour.

Tommy Stevens should have been sent out to try and pick up that first down. Do they go on to score? Who knows, but it would have been far more beneficial to find out. After that drive, the Lions responded with a touchdown to take a lead they never gave up.

The Dumb

It’s not every day that a team’s draft pick is in the building cheering for the other team, but that happened on Saturday afternoon.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Kurtis Rourke decided to spend at least part of his bye week watching his brother take on the Riders at BC Place. The Lions posted on social media that the younger brother was in the house cheering on his older brother.

What stood out to me was Rourke wearing a Lions jersey. We see siblings cheer for each other all the time across sports when one is playing a big game and the other isn’t. What we don’t normally see is a brother wearing the jersey of the opposing team that drafted him.

Yes, outside of being drafted by the Riders, Kurtis Rourke has no real attachment to the team at this point. I’m also not suggesting he shouldn’t be cheering for his brother — family is more important than anything.

With that said, if it were me, I might have just worn plain clothes. It doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, it was just kind of funny.