REGINA -- It's hard to say how much of what happened here yesterday was football and how much of what happened was the football gods.
But if it was the football gods, you have to admit they are paying unusual attention to the Edmonton Eskimos this season.
The Eskimos have specialized in wild and woolly entertainment all season, winning and losing late in an inordinate number of games.
And gosh, the gods are good at providing new ways to do it.
This might have been the second-best yet. Nothing could match the Aug. 13 game against Calgary, which ranks as one of the greatest regular- season games in CFL history.
This one was a 31-27 win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders on a 68-yard touchdown pass to an uncovered Maurice Mann with 1:04 to play after it looked like they'd lost on a record 108-yard return by Omarr Morgan of an Arkee Whitlock fumble.
In a delicious twist, it was Morgan who blew the coverage on Mann, leaving him wide open for the home-run toss by Ricky Ray, who despite all the other players who had their names on this game, was the absolute star of the day.
Ray was having one of the greatest performances of his career, going for the CFL record of 22 consecutive catches set by his best friend and backup quarterback Jason Maas in 2004.
Ray ended up at 20 when Jamaica Rector dropped a pass that couldn't have been any more perfect.
Ray continued putting every pass on the money, but after Rector's drop it seemed like the Eskimos wanted to challenge the record for most consecutive dropped passes until Ray threw the touchdown bomb to Mann.
It was just a wild and crazy way to win a game in a wild and crazy season that has Calgary, Edmonton and Saskatchewan now tied for the Western Conference lead with 6-5 records, two points ahead of the B.C. Lions.
The amazing thing to Ray is that -- along with the Eskimos battling back from being down 22-0 to come back and win in their first trip here -- was that it happened in old Pile of Bones where many an Eskimos team has been buried before.
"To win two here is remarkable," he said. "We haven't done well in this stadium. I haven't done well in this stadium."
Indeed. This is the first time the Eskimos have won two here since 1991.
And going into this season Ray had only managed one win here -- unless you count the 2003 Grey Cup.
"This is one of the toughest places to play in the CFL, and it isn't any easier when you're down, when it's raining and when you're going against the wind in the fourth quarter," he said.
"You have a lot to overcome when you play here," he added of a crowd that knows how to make noise when the visiting quarterback breaks the huddle.
Ray said he had no idea he was on track for the record.
"I felt we were very efficient in the first half. I knew we'd scored touchdowns on the first three drives. It was just great execution."
He was in the process of engineering a fourth straight touchdown when Whitlock fumbled at the ball on the two-yard line and Morgan took it back to break the old record of 104 yards set 25 years ago.
"It just came out," said Ray.
"It was second effort," Whitlock claimed of the fumble.
As for the dropped pass that killed Ray's chance for setting a new standard for consecutive completions, Rector didn't offer any excuse.
"It was right in the hands."
He said he had no idea he'd foiled a record-in-the-making until the columnist asked the question.
One drop was followed by a string of them -- two by Rector, two even worse ones by Fred Stamps and one by Kamau Peterson.
"Thankfully, we got one more shot," said Ray.
Mann, for his part, said it was the dream play.
"It was just a simple out and up. Ricky put it up nice. I think Morgan was trying to make a pick. Maybe I caught him slipping."
Ray admitted he didn't expect to see Mann the only person on the field from the 55-yard line to the goal line when he threw the bomb.
"I was pretty surprised," he said. But he knew the play was there.
"We haven't shown that play all year," Ray added of the simple route Mann ran against Morgan, who was in man coverage but never made it to be in Mann coverage.
"That was the call. He was the first read. It was to see if he could win one.
"It was just a huge play to win a game."
TERRY.JONES@SUNMEDIA.CA
