‘Glue guy’ Carter’s MOP season good on and off the field

The Roughriders Most Outstanding Player of the Year was not having an outstanding day when he found out about his nomination.

Duron Carter believes some bad sour cream on tacos he had left him out of the spotlight on Wednesday when the other nominees for player awards were getting their just accolades.

Thursday, feeling much better, the usually jubilant Carter was smiling ear to ear after practice about the nomination.

Carter believes, however, his season wasn’t as good as it could have been.

“I have five or six games with 12 yards or less. For me, I feel I could have played a lot better.”

Carter was correct, it was six games with fewer than 12 yards, but in one of those games he was the starting defensive back and returned an interception for a touchdown.

His versatility is a fact that voters couldn’t ignore as Carter played both ways and was successful switching from offence to defence late in the season when called upon.

Carter believed with a 231-yard game and the pick six fresh in the memories of voters, it helped sway them more than his versatility.

“The last five games of the season are always kind of jaded when it comes to votes like these. It’s the last games you remember.”

But he’s also hoping that works out in his favour for the Western vote taking place right now.

“I have another game coming up right now. If I have another big one hopefully it could boost me up a little bit above a quarterback, you know those quarterbacks always win it, don’t they?”

Carter had a career year this season with the Riders. He has set new personal bests with 1043 yards and eight touchdowns this year already with one more game to go.

Off the field, Carter has been just as important for the team.

Receivers coach Markus Howell joked that Carter is as much as a character off the field as he is in front of media and fans but knows when it’s time for business.

Howell also described Carter as a “glue guy.”

“(The receivers) are bowling on Monday nights, they eat together. Even on road trips the receivers go out for dinner. They do a great job, especially Duron, of keeping that group together.”

Carter is up against quarterbacks Mike Reilly and Matt Nichols for the West Division nomination. The other nominees are linebackers Solomon Elimimian and Alex Singleton.