'I would have booed us too': Riders quarterback

It was the 'Lights Out' home game for the Saskatchewan Roughriders Saturday night. Unfortunately, the team took that another way and turned the lights out on themselves, losing 30-25 to the Ottawa Redblacks.

The score actually flattered Saskatchewan and that is an understatement.

The strange thing is that it had all the makings of a beat down the other way.

The Riders were riding high on a four game win streak. The struggling Ottawa Redblacks didn't know what they had gotten themselves into when the lights literally went out prior to kickoff. 33,350 fans were armed with green glow-sticks and the Riders were introduced with fire and fireworks.

Start the game with a kickoff return touchdown from Marcus Thigpen, and the night had an atmosphere reminiscent of the 2013 Grey Cup game.

What Rider fans would pay to have that '13 offence back.

As it were, Darian Durant just happened to be in the house himself at Mosaic Stadium Saturday night.

What must Durant, who led Saskatchewan to that Grey Cup title in front of the home crowd five years ago, have been thinking? There was a quarterback who earned his lofty salary, but was shown the door by Chris Jones because he made too much.

Fast forward to 2018 and Zach Collaros, paid way more than Durant ever was, is still struggling to endear himself to Rider Priders.

Saturday night didn't help his cause.

Collaros completed just thirty-seven per cent of his passes. 

You read that right.

But credit can go to Collaros for putting the loss on himself, much like Durant always did.

"When you don't execute on offence it's frustrating," said Collaros after the game.

"When you leave your defence out there hanging and your special teams guys, you just feel like you let the team down and that's...frustrating."

Even the fans booed.

Thankfully, Collaros didn't take the Matt Nichols pouty path. Collaros said he would boo too if he paid money to witness that offensive performance. But to be fair, Collaros had help.

Receivers dropped passes and the defence gave up 494 yards.

The question "What would happen if the Riders' defence didn't bail out the offence?" was answered Saturday.

The defence, which has been the Riders' bread and butter, finally curdled.

Collaros refused to pin-point the reason for the Riders' woeful showing until he saw the film.

(Insert note to football people here: Stop saying film. That's so '70s, we're in the digital age now.)

Every game is a singular thing, every play, every repetition, the Riders quarterback tried to explain away the loss as an execution thing.

It is much simpler than that and it's between the ears.

The Riders rode their high horse into their 12 game of the season, and they fell off. And fell off hard.

Brendon LaBatte saw it coming last week.

The Riders veteran offensive lineman was asked if there was a chance of taking the Redblacks lightly, to which he responded: "There's unlimited amount of work and corrections to be had during the week and that's the biggest thing is to make sure you never get complacent and think that you've arrived and you're that good."

LaBatte should have pinned that on the locker room wall.

According to the head coach, the players thought the game was already won on the opening kickoff.

"Sometimes that's the kiss of death," said head coach Chris Jones on Thigpen's 97-yard return for a major on the opening play of the game.

"A team that's won four in a row, they're very confident, and they get a big play like that early, sometimes it's one of the worst things that can happen, they think it's going to be easy and it's never easy."

Riders' right tackle Thaddeus Coleman concurred.

"It humbled us, we got on a streak, we're humans, we got on streak, we got high, this loss humbled us."

The question now is: How do the Riders respond?

Contenders re-boot and get focused, pretenders wither away. There was no withering, at least in the locker room after the loss. There was no finger-pointing, just promises to be better.

 A week twelve butt-kicking may be just what they needed.