Continuity has Trevor Harris excited for Riders training camp: The Green Zone

These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: You said, ‘I love this organization. If it’s a no, it’s a no, I don’t want to get in their way.’ Is that your feeling towards every organization you’ve been with? Or has there been something special you found in the first two years in Saskatchewan?

A: I fall in love with the place I’m at, I always do. There is something very special about here.

I was talking to my mental performance coach and my wife about how it feels to be back and I was like, “I haven’t really felt like I’ve been home since I was in Ottawa in 2018 and I feel like I just came home when I got here.”

It really does have that feeling. The whole “If the answer is no, the answer is no,” that’s me wanting to protect this organization, because I love it so much.

I want this organization to be going in the right direction. If I didn’t feel as myself, and they don’t feel it’s me, then it’s time to move on. I mean, I’m no longer 28, I’m 38 and going to be 39 soon. I feel like I’m in my early 30s. I feel tremendous.

Q: How important is this upcoming season for you?

A: Coach (Corey) Mace has talked about it — we’re on the clock. Last year was like, “Hey, let’s build something special.” Toward the end, it looked like we were trending in the right direction.

The thing that I pressed for was continuity. I feel like there’s so much to be said about continuity in this league. The one thing about continuity is — are you topped out at your continuity by bringing back the same guys? I don’t even think we’re close to that.

This group has been together for one year and keeping the guys together, along with working together for another year, we can kick off where we left off last year and really take this thing to another level.

Continuity is a good thing to have but you can get stale in those things if you’re not careful. If you just keep continuity for the longest time, you start to top out at some sort of a level. We’re not there or even close to it yet.

Q: You mentioned the motto last year — build it, don’t flinch. What’s the motto this year?

A: I ordered the (wristbands). They’re with me right now and after training camp I’m going to pass them out to the team.

I want to get to a point where we can sell them to the people, our fans, because they’re just as much part of this team as the players are.

I’d love to maybe make a ton of them and sell them at the team shop and donate some money to charities, like the Children’s Hospital in Saskatoon. That could be a great cause that everybody can get behind.

I’ve been pitching a little bit of that to (CEO) Craig Reynolds. I think it’s something that could really catch on.

Q: How much positive momentum do you feel going into this season?

A: I feel really good about it.

The continuity piece is kind of something that’s hard to get in the CFL with one-year contracts. People say people sign long-term deals, but there’s no real guaranteed money. So if you outperform your contract, you’re not getting paid more, and if you underperform, you’re getting cut. So really, everybody’s on a one-year deal.

The fact that we were able to bring back so many key pieces and bring back the core of who we ar, and pick and choose pieces from around the league to add to what we’re doing, it really should get you excited here.

Q: Is (training camp) something you still get excited for?

A: I’m one of the weirdos. I love training camp. It’s the best because from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, it’s football.

Adversity is where you meet yourself — you’re tired, you don’t feel so good, your body’s this and that, —it’s time to kind of learn who you are and be introduced to yourself a little bit.

Q: How important is it for the vets to set the standard early?

A: I saw (Jermarcus Hardrick) the other day and I got a free back adjustment. He doesn’t quite understand that it doesn’t feel so great to get hugged by a bear. If he’s one of the 100 against the gorilla, as everybody’s talking about right now, maybe the humans have a chance.

It’s really on the veterans, because those are the guys that are going to be the heartbeat of this team. People who are here in rookie camp, we have some guys that can really flash and come in and be big contributors for us.

You saw that last year with KeeSean (Johnson). There’s games where we leaned into KeeSean last year as a receiver. So we’re going to have rookies to step up. Dohnte Meyers went for 100 yards in two games in a row last year. We’re gonna have some rookies that help us out, but the heartbeat of the team is going to be the veteran group.

Saskatchewan Roughriders wide receiver KeeSean Johnson was one of the standouts from the 2024 training camp. (Saskatchewan Roughriders/Submitted)

Q: You have the same co-ordinator, Marc Mueller, for 2025. What’s that like? Can you speak to that as you approach training camp knowing that you’re going to be on the same page, speaking the same language? 

A: That’s something that is very underrated. I’ve told quite a few people, this is the first time since 2018 that I’ve gone into a season with the same co-ordinator. It is really refreshing to be able to come in and hear the verbiage and have it be my first language in football as opposed to learning a new language.

Each co-ordinator is going to have a different idea of how you go about it. Last year, Marc was really great about allowing me to be myself in this offense.

I know that people in Regina call him the golden boy and boy wonder and that’s what he’s been, just being flexible for me as a quarterback and being flexible in terms of allowing our personnel to dictate what we’re going to do.

Everybody’s good at something different. Being able to exploit everybody’s strengths is something that is an art form.

Q: Did you have any company for the drive up to training camp?

A: It was me and AJ (Ouellette) again. So exactly the same thing. Lots of talks about Jesus.

He made fun of me relentlessly last year for playing the same 10 songs from June to November so I stepped up my game with my playlist. It was a lot of Christian music, a lot of country music. Both of us are kind of into the same sort of music situation.

When we stopped, we did our rehab exercises or prehab exercises. We did some workouts, we did push-up contests. It was a ton of fun. We had fun with it but it went by so fast.

Q: So is Chris Stapleton on the playlist?

A: Oh yeah. We got some great country music. Country music and Christian music is my wheelhouse.

Q: Have you figured out nicknames for new guys Jake Maier and Tommy Stevens yet?

A: I hope they’re not listening because their nickname game is coming. They might not know it, but we’ll get the computer to spit out their nicknames and I’ll update you guys Week 1 when I’m on with you.