Buckle up and strap in, Bomber Nation: the Winnipeg Blue Bombers now have an opponent for the Canadian Football League’s Western Final.
And in what will undoubtedly make for a dramatic and riveting week ahead, the Saskatchewan Roughriders—the Blue Bombers oldest and most bitter rival—will be paying a visit next weekend after knocking off the B.C. Lions 28-19 Saturday night in the Western Semi-Final at Regina.
These two proud prairie squads will climb into the ring at Princess Auto Stadium on November 9th (5:30 p.m. CDT) and trade punches in the West Final, with the victor earning a trip to the 111th Grey Cup in Vancouver on Sunday, November 17th.
ᴏᴜʀ ʜᴏᴜꜱᴇ | ꜱᴀᴛᴜʀᴅᴀʏ
🎟️ » https://t.co/9sqF78Li9a#ForTheW pic.twitter.com/OcAJKId925
— y – Winnipeg Blue Bombers (@Wpg_BlueBombers) November 3, 2024
The Blue Bombers spent the last week practicing, preparing, and recuperating after earning the first-round bye and homefield advantage by finishing first in the West 11-7 and are now one win away from their fifth straight appearance in the Grey Cup and a shot at a third championship over that span.
Winnipeg won two of the three meetings between the clubs this year and will now lean on their loyal fan base for an edge when it matters most. The Blue Bombers are 37-6 at home in the regular season since 2019 and 40-6 overall, including the playoffs, with West Final wins over Saskatchewan in 2021 and the Lions in 2022 and 2023.
“They’re a strong team that plays together and you can tell there’s a bond there,” said Blue Bombers defensive back Deatrick Nichols of the Riders on Friday. “And, of course, Trevor Harris is an elite quarterback who just seems to do everything right. You have to play awesome football and be on your Ps and Qs at all times against him.
“I’m a fan of his game, honestly. He plays the game very well; he controls the game without trying to do too much and he makes the simple things look easy. He’s got great arm strength and just checks all the boxes to me. He’s seen it all and done it all.
“It’s going to be a dogfight.”
Harris, FYI, was 26-of-33 for 279 yards and one TD, AJ Ouellette rushed for two scores, and their ball-hawking defence forced three turnovers in the win over the Lions.
“Veteran quarterback with Trevor. It’s usually snap, then the ball comes out,” defensive end Willie Jefferson told BlueBombers.com earlier this week. “They have a good group of receivers in (Samuel) Emilus, (Kian) Schaffer-Baker, Kee-Sean Johnson… they’ve got good running backs in (AJ) Ouellette and (Ryquell) Armstead.
“They’re coming here and we’re going to have to lock in on first down and try to get the ball out of Trevor’s hands on second down; try to get him to throw some errant passes. We need to get to Ouellette or Armstead early so they don’t get the chance to get going downhill.
“But they have to come here and play in front of our fans. We need them to be loud again.”
Here’s the goods on this West Final matchup:
BLUE BOMBERS (11-7) VS. ROUGHRIDERS (9-8-1)
All-time playoff series:
- Last playoff meeting: 2021 West Final, December 5th at Winnipeg: Blue Bombers 21 Roughriders 17
- The Blue Bombers hold an 8-7 edge all-time in playoff series with the Riders.
THE 2024 SEASON MATCHUPS
Head-to-head: The Blue Bombers won the season series 2-1
Game 1: July 19th – Saskatchewan 19 Winnipeg 9
Location: Mosaic Stadium, Regina
A brief recap: The Blue Bombers fell to 2-5—the Riders improved to 5-1—as Winnipeg was guilty of some critical turnovers, including a late fumble as the team tried to rally for a tying score, took six penalties for 81 yards and did not find the end zone.
The Riders started Shea Patterson at QB with Trevor Harris injured, and he completed 17-of-25 passes for 261 yards and one TD.
Quotable: “Just not good enough. We were right there until the end; we’ve just got to learn to close out games. We now go feel sorry for ourselves for the next 24 hours, flush it and luckily, we have a longer week this week, so we can get more work in and start turning this around.
“This league, it’s crazy. It’s usually the team that’s hot at the end that wins it. The thing is, we can’t wait until then to turn this thing around. We’re seven games through right now and it’s time to get things going in the right direction.” — defensive tackle Jake Thomas.
Game 2: Labour Day Classic — September 1st – Winnipeg 35 Saskatchewan 33
Location: Mosaic Stadium, Regina
A brief recap: The Blue Bombers won their fourth straight to improve to 6-6 and grab top spot in the West despite not having Zach Collaros available for the second half after he took a late shot to the chin by Myles Brown.
Collaros had put together one of his best halves in the first chunk of the season, having completed 12 of 18 passes for 218 yards and a 44-yard TD strike to Nic Demski. He was replaced by Chris Streveler and the defence and special teams did their thing—including a Nick Hallett fumble recovery on a botched punt return by Mario Alford.
Quotable: “Tough game; glad we won, but we’ve got some stuff to fix. Like Coach O’Shea said in the middle of the week, this is not the time to be worried about standings and stuff like that. We’ll let the chips fall where they fall at the end, but we’ve got to get through the mud right now.
“We’re just playing football right now, man. It’s that time of the year where we can’t worry about standings, we can’t worry about stats, we can’t worry about the media. Like I said, we’re in the mud right now, and we’re fighting to get where we want to get to. It’s going to be a hard grind and we’re ready to work.” — defensive end Willie Jefferson.
Game 3: The Banjo Bowl — September 7th – Winnipeg 26 Saskatchewan 21
Location: Princess Auto Stadium, Winnipeg
Empty heading
A brief recap: The Blue Bombers cranked out their fifth straight win to improve to 7-6 as Mike O’Shea passed Bud Grant to become the franchise’s all-time leader in coaching wins.
The Riders took an 18-16 advantage into the fourth before a Collaros to Kenny Lawler touchdown on the first play of the quarter and a Sergio Castillo field goal with 1:05 left.
Of note: the Blue Bombers lost Chris Streveler for the season on a low hit by Brown — the same player who had taken out Collaros a week earlier.
Quotable: “When you’ve got two physical football teams meeting together, it’s going to be a slugfest. You’ve just got to be the one to keep swinging and not let off. As tough as it got, we kept swinging, we kept hanging in there and we figured out how to pull it out.
“Just a tremendous team effort in all phases. We’ve been locked in, dialled in every practice and like we’ve said, we’re just trying to go 1-0 each week and we’ve been doing that. We’ve been dialled in, focused, executing, and figuring out how to win these close games. We’re back playing the type of football we play.” — receiver Kenny Lawler.
3 Notable numbers from Blue Bombers vs. Roughriders
8-0: The Blue Bombers have won eight straight, including the ’21 West Final, at home against the Roughriders, dating back to a 32-17 loss in the 2018 Banjo Bowl.
134: The Roughriders effectively shut down Brady Oliveira in their three meetings this year, limiting the league’s rushing champion to just 134 yards over three games on 32 carries—an average of 4.2 yards per carry.
Of note: Oliveira has rushed for over 100 yards in three of the Blue Bombers last four playoff games and in the fourth had 15 carries for 82 yards.
655: Riders QB Trevor Harris did not play in the first meeting between these two clubs in July, but in the Labour Day Classic/Banjo Bowl back-to-back—both Blue Bombers wins—the veteran pivot completed 62.2 percent of his passes for a whopping 655 yards with five TDs and two interceptions.
