Playoff experience valuable commodity for young Rider team

There’s a handful of Roughriders that weren’t even in high school as Kevin Glenn was playing in his first CFL playoff game.

At an average age of 26.9, the green and white are fielding one of the youngest teams in the league.

Many of the team’s players have never played in the CFL post-season, which makes Glenn’s 14 appearances all the more important.

“I think it’s valuable. It’s a different season, it’s not the regular season. It’s going to be a lot of emotion, a lot of excitement and how you bottle it and not get too high or too low on that given day,” said Glenn.

Matched up against Glenn’s 14 appearances is Ottawa’s starting quarterback Trevor Harris, who will be playing in his first ever playoff game Sunday.

Ottawa is the defending Grey Cup Champion, but it was Henry Burris that delivered the team through the post-season.

“The nerves are going to be there. There’s going to be a lot of excitement, a lot of anxiety,” said Glenn about how he expects Harris will be feeling ahead of his first playoff game.

“I can almost guarantee that he’s probably going to be very, very anxious to get the game going, he probably won’t sleep the night before, so maybe that will make him a little bit tired and our d-line can chase him down and tackle him,” he added with a laugh.

Another veteran that will be helping out his less experienced teammates is defensive back Jovon Johnson, who was in his first Grey Cup in 2007 – on the practice roster for the Riders.

“Experience plays a major factor because you know, you’ve been through it, you know what to expect, especially for having a group of guys around you that are, to say the least, younger, who may not have had an opportunity to play in the post-season yet,” he said.

But Johnson cautioned against putting too much stock in Harris’s lack of experience.

“For us, having an experienced quarterback that’s seen it all does give us a tad bit of an edge,” Johnson said before adding Harris has been in the league for a while.

“He makes the right throws, he makes the right reads. He can move around and extend plays but when he does that he extends plays to throw,” Johnson explained.

“It’s just a matter of us getting pressure on Trevor and making him uncomfortable.”

But in the meantime, Johnson, Glenn and the team’s other vets will be working to make their own teammates as comfortable in this new situation as possible.

And Glenn said it’s important to remember one thing.

“These don’t come around all the time so enjoy it, but at the same time understand we have an opportunity to do something special,” he said.