Saskatchewan Roughriders' head coach Corey Mace did not like his team's effort at practice on Tuesday.
"We didn't meet our expectations," Mace said. "That's something I think is my job to hold everybody to that expectation."
Mace stopped practice on two separate occasions, once on the field and the second time he sent the team to the locker room for a meeting behind closed doors.
"We talk about the standard that we want in this facility. I felt we didn't meet it since the beginning of the day," Mace said. ‘It trickled into practice and we had to address that.”
Currently, the Riders are on a seven-game winless streak 0-6-1 and sit third place in the West Division at 5-7-1. Mace believes the lack of quality practice was a one-off and he wants to see how his players respond.
"I've been on teams where you have practices like this, whether I was playing or coaching," Mace said. "It's an opportunity for the guys to lean on each other and rally."
Before Mace went into coaching, he played in the NFL for a few years with the Buffalo Bills from 2007 to 2009. After his time south of the border, he came north to the CFL and played five years with the Calgary Stampeders from 2010 to 2015. Although, he did not play a regular season game in 2015 because he fractured his foot in the pre-season.
“It’s about coming to work every day and looking for ways to get better. It’s a matter of really fighting complacency, regardless of the circumstances because there’s no perfect. There’s always something to work on," Mace said.
“You want to make sure that the guys in the room, the staff and everybody in this building, truthfully, are finding ways to improve each day. That’s the standard, when you see it and it’s not, that’s the disappointing part."
In those years with the Stamps, Mace won a Grey Cup in 2014 and earned the Presidents' Ring which is given to the player who best combines excellence on the field with leadership, inspiration and motivational skills as voted on by teammates. As a coach, Mace won a Grey Cup with Calgary coaching the team's defensive line in 2018 and claimed another CFL championship with the Toronto Argonauts as defensive coordinator in 2022.
“We’ve got to approach each day like we’re trying to accomplish something. I thought it wasn’t our best day. I thought we had a great day on Monday. We’re always looking to be better each day. I thought we failed at that, it was a message that we’ve got to come to work," Mace said. “We’ve got a lot to play for, we’ve got to prove it each day, though.”
Riders quarterback Trevor Harris agreed that their workout wasn't up to the team's standard and shared in the reponsibility and frustration of their performance.
"It pissed me off. It's how it is, man. This is an alpha male sport. We have a job, responsibility to go out there and play well and mesh together as a team," Harris said. "The way we came out wasn't acceptable. When that happened us captains got together and we said we're going back out to finish practice."
Harris said no coaches were present when he and the captains had the team finish practice. He believes this will be a motivator for the team going forward.
"Hopefully, it's a wake-up message for us to make sure that we're on our P's and Q's and our details every day, "Harris said. "I'm glad it happened Tuesday instead of Friday. We need to bring the energy and effort every single day."
The Roughriders next game is Friday as the team takes on the Calgary Stampeders. Countdown to Kickoff starts at 4:30 p.m., with kickoff at 7:30 p.m. live on 620 CKRM from McMahon Stadium.
