CHRIS JONES NEWS CONFERENCE NOTES VS B.C.

Here are some notes and quotes from Roughrider Head Coach & GM Chris Jones’ pregame news conference on Friday.  Saturday afternoon at 5:00, Saskatchewan hosts the B.C. Lions (TSN, CKRM Rider Radio Network).

ON JOSIAH ST. JOHN CRACKING THE ROSTER

CJ:  “We’ve been working with him a lot after practice, working against our practice roster guys.  He’s done a good job working with our strength coach trying to get in game shape.  He’s probably going to be dressed because of injury and we’ll see if he gets time or not.”


IS THE INJURY TO CENTRE DAN CLARK SERIOUS?

CJ:  “No.”

WILL IT AFFECT PRODUCTIVITY?

CJ:  “We can’t let one person not being there be the demise of us.  We gotta be prepared and even it’s not optimal, we’ve done our homework and we know who’s going to be our back-ups.  B.C.’s got a tremendous defense.  They’re a well-rounded football team.  Wally’s the all-time winningest coach for a reason and you see the results of him being the head coach over there.


YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS BEING WALLY’S 400TH CAREER GAME?

CJ:  “Just to be involved in 400 football games is amazing much less winning 400.”

WELL HE HASN’T WON 400.

CJ:  “Whatever.  350, 400, it doesn’t matter.”

WHAT ABOUT JONATHAN NEWSOME?

CJ:  “He’s a real good football player.  He’s one of those guys that can be a very versatile player.  He can drop, he can man cover.  Tremendous athlete.  I gotta ’em to pay attention and learn what they’re doing.  Leonard and Newsome are similar to some of the guys we’ve had in the past:  Anwar Stewart when he was young, Charleston Hughes was very similar.  Now can they show up day in day out, week in week out, meeting in meeting out, walk-through after walk-through and do the right things.”

HOW IMPORTANT WAS THE SIGNING OF OL ANDREW JONES?

CJ:  “The thing about Andrew is #1 he’s a good person and that’s what we’ve tried to recruit; guys that are good guys and will fit into our locker room.  And then they do what we ask them to do whenever we ask them to do it.  Certainly we’ve won some football games with Andrew as our centre which is vital for reasons like this.”

HOW IS DT CEDRIC MCKINLEY ADJUSTING?

CJ:  “Big Ced?  He’s adjusting very well.  The locker room really likes him.  It’s hard not to like Big Ced.  (Regarding the trade for McKinley from Edmonton) you’d have to ask Ed what their said was.  For us it was out of necessity.  We needed a defensive tackle.  We lost a very good one in Jonathan Williams.  For us to pick up a guy that’s very good in the locker room, a good hard-worker, and knows what we’re doing, that’s before his size and his talent.”