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OTTAWA — It’s officially a disaster.  Perhaps more than we even know.

With their season on life support, the Saskatchewan Roughriders came up with one of the most uninspired efforts in years Sunday in Ottawa which ultimately led to an embarrassing 35-13 defeat.

The Riders’ record dropped to 0-9 and virtually any hope that the season can be saved was lost.

Why?  Because no indication was given that this trainwreck of a season is anywhere close to being turned around.

The Riders won the coin toss at the outset of Sunday’s game but deferred to the second half which gave Ottawa the ball.  They promptly moved 82 yards in just five plays for a 7-0 lead before rookie Rider quarterback Brett Smith even got a chance to touch the ball.

You’ll hear a lot about Brett Smith coming up.

After a prompt two-and-out by the Rider offense in their opening series (which included the first of 10 RedBlacks sacks on the day), Ottawa then put together a 78-yard drive which culminated in another touchdown.  14-0 Ottawa before the game was eight minutes old.

Ready to play on defense?

Hardly.

But the game turned in the second quarter.  Both ways.  The Riders got on the board with rookie Naaman Roosevelt’s first career touchdown, a 9-yard pass from Brett Smith, 2:36 into the second quarter.  14-10 RedBlacks.

However seven minutes later an ill-advised Smith pass was intercepted in the Ottawa endzone.  He was given the hook.

That’s okay, we thought.  Back-up Tino Sunseri would get a look for a couple of series and then Smith would be back in there.

That, apparently, was the plan initially.

Sunseri’s first drive seemed successful enough until Rider kicker Paul McCallum clanked the upright on a 35-yard attempt late in the half for no points.

The teams went into the break with Ottawa still up 14-10.

Surely we’d see Brett Smith – the rookie gunslinger from Wyoming who’s gaining more and more Rider fans with every snap – in the second half, right?

Wrong.

Saskatchewan had six possessions in the second half and Sunseri quarterbacked them all.  As the Riders fumbled the ball away time and again, as offensive linemen went down like flies and the Ottawa sacks mounted, it turned into an incredibly wretched display.

All the while, Smith stood stoicly on the Rider sidelines while clutching his helmet.

We were assured in the broadcast booth that Smith was indeed not injured.

So why wouldn’t he come back into the game?  Surely he represented the Riders’ best chance to win, no?

“There was a thought to putting him back in but things transpired that made it a moot point so we stuck with Tino,” Riders coach Corey Chamblin told 620 CKRM after the game.  “I’ll leave it at that.  It started temporary but ended up being longer than that.”

When asked again hours after the game, the Roughriders refused to reveal what “transpired” with Smith on the sidelines.

That’s fine.  That opens the door for us to speculate.

And my guess is that Smith told off whoever made the decision to yank him from the game.  Could it have been offensive coordinator Jacques Chapdelaine or Chamblin himself?  At this point, it doesn’t matter.

And, if my theory is true, how could you blame Smith?  His defensive teammates were missing tackles left and right and early on gave the Riders no chance to win.

And Smith throws one interception and gets pulled?

It would seem inexplicable, but then again no one can explain what’s gone so horribly wrong week-in and week-out in the worst Roughrider season in nearly 40 years.

My theory of a spat with Smith was confirmed in the Leader Post’s postgame story by Murray McCormick.  Apparently, he didn’t take the news of being pulled well and that’s why he was benched for the duration.

Can’t blame him.  Dwight Anderson used to scream at the coaches on a weekly basis but I guess that was okay.

Also, I don’t know why Chamblin would divulge the Smith info to the rest of the media, but not during a live interview on the radio rightsholder 620 CKRM.

Regardless, clearly things denigrated into a ‘I’ll show you who’s boss’ situation at around the 8:00 mark of the second quarter on Sunday.  At the expense of the game, and of the team.

This tells us so many things about this football team right now and not one of them is good.

“There was some good things in all phases but as a team we lost,” Chamblin shrugged afterwards.  “Not enough guys rose to the occasion to win this game.”

How many guys rising to the occasion is it going to take to win a game?  You can’t fire 44 players but you can fire one coach and that’s what the Rider Nation is screaming for today.  Chamblin was asked afterwards if he expects to be directing this football club in next week’s Labour Day Classic against Winnipeg Sunday at Mosaic Stadium.

“Every week I come into this whether we’re 8-2 or 0-9, the decision is never mine,” Chamblin said incredibly calmly.  “I still come to work and do what I need to do.  The decision doesn’t lie in my hands.”

It will be interesting to see who’s the boss come Sunday.