CALGARY - Depending on who you ask, the Greg Marshall and Doug Berry firings in Regina were either long overdue or a completely boneheaded attempt to salvage a season.
Ask the Saskatchewan Roughriders starting quarterback, and the answer is unclear. It takes some reading between the lines to figure out his opinion.
Although he didn’t come out and say it directly, Darian Durant seems relieved the earth-shaking moves were made.
There were rumours Durant didn’t get along with Berry and didn’t fit into the offensive system the Riders were running.
Durant, who was grilled by the media Monday in Regina (a full transcript is on the Rider Rumblings blog), said he never took issue with Berry personally, but there were many times they weren’t on same page in play-calling.
Now, with Ken Miller taking over as head coach and putting his stamp back on the offence, Durant feels much more relaxed and ready to turn the 1-7 team around.
“Each and every week, I had to field a question about our relationship and how it was and what’s going on, so it’s definitely a relief to get that out of the way and just be able to focus more on football,” Durant said about the constant talk of he and Berry’s seemingly cool partnership.
“The system that coach Miller brings in is a system that I’m familiar with. It’s what got me started and it’s what I had most of my success in. I’m just looking forward to moving on and being able to sit down with coach Miller, get with him, and try to get this offence back on track.”
Berry was the offensive co-ordinator in 2010 when Durant led the CFL in passing yardage and took the Riders to another Grey Cup berth.
This season, Miller was the missing link.
“Coach Miller was an offensive guy,” Durant said. “Marcus Crandell (since gone to Edmonton) was an offensive guy. Those guys kind of were in between the relationship that I had with Doug.
“With coach Miller leaving, that left everything on Doug’s shoulders. There wasn’t really a middleman or a guy that I could talk to in-between to kind of get some stuff together. Like I said, it’s just going to be great working with coach. He understands offence. He understands what’s going on, and I look forward to it.”
One thing is clear: When making a mid-season head-coaching change in the CFL, usually the team does equally awful after the man in charge is gassed.
Of course, with any rule there is an exception, and the Roughriders may have put the wrong person in charge after Marshall and offensive co-ordinator Berry were let go last Friday following a 1-7 start.
Current Roughriders offensive-line coach Steve Buratto took over the B.C. Lions’ head-coaching duties from Greg Mohns in 2000 and then led the Leos on an improbable Grey Cup run. Coaching changes mid-stream don’t usually work out. In the past decade, there have been more examples like the 2008 Argos than the 2000 Lions. That year, the legendary Don Matthews took over for Rich Stubler with eight games left and Toronto didn’t win a single outing.
Succeeding Miller was no easy task. In three seasons, Miller guided the Riders to two Grey Cup appearances and walked away with health issues after last year’s second-straight championship game loss to the Alouettes.
There is no way to know if Marshall is a good head coach or not. Eight games is certainly not enough time.
Clearly, Marshall didn’t have the ear of the players in the locker-room, and Durant’s comments allude to the fact the team didn’t respond to a new voice.
“I’m just glad to have coach Miller back,” Durant said. “We never wanted him to leave in the first place.
“When you have a guy like coach Miller and he instils a certain belief in guys for years at a time and then it’s all taken away and now you have a new leader, of course it’s going to be tough.
“We’re all pros but, at the same time, we’re humans. We feed off of our head coach. What coach Miller brought to the table is what we were used to. Greg was different. He was a great guy, but he was different in the way he got his message across. Some guys were receptive and (for) some guys, it wasn’t the best way.”
ian.busby@sunmedia.ca
