Stampeders underwhelm in 36-21 loss to Roughriders, suggesting a long West war ahead

The Calgary Stampeders' 36-21 loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders Friday suggests that they won't have clear sailing to the top of the West Division. The Stamps delivered arguably the CFL's top performance last week, thumping the highly-touted B.C. Lions 44-32, but their showing Friday in Regina was much less impressive, dropping them to a 1-1 record on the year. Meanwhile, the Riders improved to 2-0 with the win and the Lions pulled up to 1-1 thanks to their own victory over Toronto Thursday. Friday's loss wasn't an entirely terrible outing from Calgary, as there were bright spots and it was closer than the scoreline indicated, but it underwhelmed in comparison to what they accomplished the week before, and it may signify that these three teams (and possibly even the Edmonton Eskimos, but they'll have to improve significantly themselves) will be duking it out for the West Division's top spot all season long.

There were plenty of things that went wrong for the Stampeders Friday. Perhaps most significantly, running back Jon Cornish was held to just 42 yards on eight carries (5.25 yards per carry), a far cry from the 172 yards he put up on 24 carries (7.2 yards per carry) in Week One that earned him our Canadian star of the week. Containing Cornish is crucial to stopping the Calgary attack, and that was a key part of why Saskatchewan came away with a victory Friday. It wasn't the only reason, though. The Stamps' defence also got ran over by Riders' star Kory Sheets, who had 133 rushing yards and a touchdown on 26 carries (5.1 yards per carry), and they couldn't stop the Batman-and-Robin pairing of Weston Dressler and Chris Getzlaf, who had 108 and 97 receiving yards respectively. Saskatchewan's passing offence worked well in general, as quarterback Darian Durant was well-protected for most of the night by the offensive line and had time to pick apart the Calgary defence for 258 yards and two touchdowns while completing 76.5 per cent of his passes. The Stamps will have to rediscover their dominant ground game and effective defence to be in the West Division mix.

Yet, there were good signs for Calgary Friday night as well. The chief one there may be the play of quarterback Drew Tate, who delivered an excellent outing on the road in a losing cause. Tate threw for 231 yards and two touchdowns without an interception, but what was most impressive was that he was able to complete 19 of his 25 throws (a 76 per cent mark similar to what Durant achieved). Curiously, Tate was pulled for Kevin Glenn in the final five minutes, but his performance was still a solid one. (Update: Tate apparently left with an elbow issue, but said after the game he'll be fine to play next week.) He was also able to spread the ball around effectively, as four Stampeders had at least four catches and another four had at least one Friday. An efficient passing game like that could help Calgary rise this year, if they're able to get their other parts of the game in line. It's notable that the Stamps led most of the way through this one, too, and that one Saskatchewan touchdown came very late, perhaps implying there isn't a huge gulf between these teams.

That lack of a dramatic talent discrepancy among the West's best may prove to be a storyline all year long. B.C., Calgary and Saskatchewan all have solid mixes of capable veterans and promising youngsters, and there doesn't seem to be a huge amount separating the teams at the moment. All have impressive quarterbacks (Durant, Tate and Travis Lulay out in B.C.), running backs (Cornish, Sheets and the Lions' Andrew Harris) and groups of receivers and defenders. Even the Eskimos can't be completely written off; they have talent too, but it's just that there are more questions with them. The projected top three West teams all seem very even at the moment, though, and that could make for some fascinating battles this year. When B.C. goes from bad to good from Week One to Week Two, Calgary reverses that process and Saskatchewan goes from moderately impressive to quite impressive over that timeframe, it's looking like the division could be up for grabs amongst those teams.