Sweeping the home-and-home series:
To finish first in the East Division, the Als need to win these final two games against the Argonauts. The Argos has a four-point lead, and they won the first meeting between these two teams last June. So, the Alouettes winning both games would mean that they’d be tied in the standings, but Montreal would have the tiebreaker because they will have won two of three head-to-head matchups.
“It’s business as usual,” Harris said. “We’ve been in playoff mode since we hit the 2-6 mark. We had a team meeting, we took it one week at a time, it’s a one-week season. Our goal every week is to be 1-0 this week.
“We can’t win two games this week, we can’t win the East this week, but all we can do is give ourselves a chance the following week.”
A lot has changed for the Als since these two teams last met. William Stanback wasn’t in the lineup, Vernon Adams Jr. was the starting quarterback, and Khari Jones and Barron Miles were still the head coach and defensive coordinator.
The Als have a new look, and they’re heading into this stretch of games with a 6-2 record in their last eight.
Protecting the football:
The Alouettes have a 7-1 record when starting quarterback Trevor Harris doesn’t throw an interception. That’s good news considering he’s gone 118 pass attempts without throwing a pick. The 36-year-old doesn’t necessarily throw for 300 yards or more regularly, but he’s efficient and does what’s needed to get his team the win.
The team got off to a 2-6 start, but Harris wasn’t the starting quarterback for the first two games of the season. Over the last eight games, the Als have a 6-2 record, which has propelled them into second place in the East Division. They can still finish first if they sweep Toronto in this home-and-home series. Harris has a lot to do with the team’s success.
Among quarterbacks who have thrown at least 350 passes this season, Harris ranks first in completion percentage (71.3 percent).
Running the football:
The Als didn’t run the ball very much in the first half of last week’s game in Ottawa, and they found themselves trailing at half-time. In the second half, they made a point of using running backs William Stanback and Walter Fletcher a lot more. That’s when the game changed in their favour.
The team has shown that they’re capable of putting up big passing numbers if they need to, but the offence is much more effective when it’s balanced.
“It’s huge,” Harris said of establishing the running game. “Because when teams are able to just use three people in the box and nine in coverage or four in the box and eight in coverage, it makes it a little more difficult when they know what’s going on, and when we’re just going to keep shoving it down the field and throwing it. If we need to do that, we will, but it’s awesome to have (Stanback) and (Fletcher) in there knowing that we can gash people in the running game. Once you can do that, that’s when all offences start to really flourish.
“It’s not necessarily throwing for 350 or 400 yards but doing so if you need to is more the theme of that. We want to make sure we’re able to run the football, throw the football, stretch the field horizontally, stretch the field vertically, and utilize that run game to allow our offensive line to come downhill on them.”
Honouring SJ Green:
The Als will be welcoming a legend back into the nest on Saturday afternoon, as S.J. Green will be in town to officially retire as a Montreal Alouette. The 37-year-old joined the Alouettes in 2007, waited patiently for his opportunity, and exploded onto the scene as a full-time starter in 2010.
Green recorded four 1,000-yard seasons for the Als between the 2011 and 2015 seasons. He won two Grey Cups with the Als in 2009 and 2010 and another one with the Argonauts in 2017. He was named a CFL All-Star twice and an East Division All-Star eight times.
“He’s a guy I got to watch at Percival Molson Stadium,” Kristian Matte, Green’s former teammate, said.
“He’s a guy who made amazing catches and plays. He’s a guy I’m really looking forward to seeing. I’m really happy that he’s going to retire as an Alouette. He was a key player for us for several years and he’s a guy who worked hard for his career. I have a lot of respect for S.J. and I was honoured to play with him.”
