112th Grey Cup: Can Montreal stop Saskatchewan?

The Saskatchewan Roughriders human face the Montreal Alouettes for the canadian river football game conference title on Sunday at 6 p.m. ET in Winnipeg. Here's a primer on the 112th Grey Cup game:

Saskatchewan is favoured to end its Grey Cup drought.

The Roughriders haven't won a championship since 2013, which is also the last time they played for the Grey Cup. Twelve years may not sound like much, but that's a pretty long dry spell in a nine-team league. The B.C. Lions are the only other club that hasn't played in the title game since the Riders' last appearance.

In the meantime, things were a little, well, rough for the Riders. They had an overall regular-season record of 83-92 and just three playoff wins in the 10 seasons from 2014-2024 (2020 was cancelled due to Covid).

This year, though, Saskatchewan has been the CFL's top team from the get-go. They raced out to a 4-0 start and ran their record to 8-1 before finishing a league-best 12-6 following two meaningless losses to close the regular season after they'd clinched the West Division title.

After enjoying a first-round playoff bye, Saskatchewan rallied to beat visiting B.C. 24-21 in a thrilling West final last Saturday. Trailing 21-17 with just 63 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, quarterback Trevor Harris drove the Riders 74 yards in seven plays for the game-winning touchdown on a three-yard pass to Canadian receiver Tommy Nield with 11 seconds left.

Now it's up to Harris and company to deliver a rare (and much-deserved) championship to the passionate, watermelon-hatted fans of Saskatchewan. Their team has won just four of the 111 Grey Cup games to date, while losing 15 of them for an abysmal .211 winning percentage. But the Riders are favoured by a healthy four points on Sunday, implying about a 2-in-3 chance of victory.

Montreal's hopes hinge on a hammy.

Alouettes fans can relate to the Riders' pain. They went 13 years between Grey Cup appearances before their team won it in 2023 by upsetting heavily favoured Winnipeg.

This season, Montreal went 10-8 to finish second in the East. Then they dealt the Blue Bombers another crushing blow in the playoffs, outgunning them 42-33 to quash Winnipeg's hopes of reaching a record-tying sixth consecutive Grey Cup game. Last weekend, the Als marched into Hamilton for the East final and upset the first-place Tiger-Cats 19-16 on a walk-off 45-yard field goal by Jose Maltos Diaz.

With that win, Montreal quarterback Davis Alexander improved to 13-0 as a starter in the CFL. Including their two playoff victories, the Als are 9-0 with him in the lineup this year. But a balky left hamstring caused Alexander to miss 11 games, and Montreal went 3-8 with 37-year-old journeyman McLeod Bethel-Thompson as their primary backup.

Unfortunately, Alexander reaggravated that hamstring on a drive-ending tackle during the fourth quarter of last Saturday's East final. He did not miss any plays after the Als regained possession, and he led the seven-play, 37-yard drive that resulted in Maltos Diaz' game-winning kick.

But head coach Jason Maas admitted his star QB will not be fully healthy for the Grey Cup, even though Maas and Alexander both promise he'll start after a week of rehab work on the hammy. Encouragingly, Alexander took part in the Alouettes' first practice on Wednesday, though the team listed him as a "limited" participant.

Defence wins championships. And it might decide this one.

No disrespect to these two offences, which are both dotted with good players.

For Saskatchewan, Harris ranked third in the CFL in passing yards (trailing only Hamilton's Bo Levi Mitchell and B.C.'s Nathan Rourke, the two finalists for the league's Most Outstanding Player award) and finished second to Rourke in passer rating. A.J. Ouellette placed second in rushing yards and ran for 113 on 17 carries in the West final. Star receiver KeeSean Johnson made 86 catches for 1,159 yards, which ranked fourth in the league despite his missing the last two games with a knee injury that also kept him out of the West final. Johnson was on the field for the early portion of Wednesday's practice, but he was officially listed as a non-participant, putting his status for the Grey Cup up in the air.

For Montreal, Alexander's two stints on the injured list pushed him down the leaderboard in the counting stats like passing yards and touchdowns. But he tied Harris for second place in passer rating and, in the seven games where he was active, threw for 10 touchdowns and just three interceptions — a stellar ratio. Alexander's favourite target, Tyler Snead, was close to the Riders' Johnson with 84 catches for 1,129 yards.

But, as a whole, neither of these offences exactly blew the doors off their opponents. Saskatchewan tied for fourth among the nine teams in offensive points scored, while Montreal was sixth. In average yards gained per play, they were third and seventh, respectively — though Alexander's 11 missed games are a drag on the Als' numbers.

If we accept the premise that Alexander's presence (and Johnson's potential absence) brings these two offences closer to a wash, then the Grey Cup might come down to who has the better defence. So let's dig into the stats there.

The Riders' D was better at preventing scoring this season, ranking third in average points by the opposing offence at 22.7 per game. And they were second in interceptions, with cornerback Tevaughn Campbell snagging six of them to tie for the league lead. In the West final, Saskatchewan held Rourke and the Lions' top-rated offence to just 21 points — nine fewer than they averaged in the regular season.

Montreal's D was just behind the Riders' in average points surrendered at 22.8 before holding Hamilton (the league's No. 2 scoring offence) to only 16 points in the East final — 11 points below the Ticats' regular-season average on offence.

In terms of net yards allowed, Montreal had the stingiest defence in the league this season, with Saskatchewan right behind in second. But the Alouettes really set themselves apart in the more advanced metric of yards per play allowed. Their mark of 6.02 was more than a third of a yard better than second-place B.C.'s, and well ahead of fifth-place Saskatchewan's 6.65.

Anchored by linebackers Darnell Sankey (third in the league in tackles) and Tyrice Beverette (seven sacks, four interceptions) and lineman Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund (a finalist for Most Outstanding Canadian after notching 11 sacks), Montreal's D has the power to wreck any game. 

That formula has worked well for Grey Cup underdogs in recent years — including the Alouettes themselves in 2023, when they upset Toronto in the East final with five takeaways (plus another four turnovers on downs) before winning the Grey Cup as eight-point dogs against Winnipeg. Last year, Toronto had four interceptions and a fumble recovery to hand the Blue Bombers another shocking defeat in the title game.

Will defence deliver another Grey Cup championship? We'll find out Sunday night in Winnipeg.

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