MR TOUCHDOWN

Call him Mr. Touchdown.

Saskatchewan Roughriders running back Wes Cates led the league with 16 touchdowns during the regular season — a trend he has continued throughout the playoffs so far.

If there’s a stats column a football player wants to lead all season long aside from wins, it’s touchdowns.

But that’s the whole point, right?

“Yeah, it’s about scoring,” said the 31-year old, who has spent the past four seasons with the Roughriders and will be playing in his third Grey Cup during that time. “I was lucky enough to be on a team that found the end zone a lot and I was the guy that found it the most out of everybody on my squad.”

The Roughriders were third in scoring, with 497 points — behind the Calgary Stampeders and Montreal Alouettes. Cates accounted for 96 of those with 15 rushing touchdowns and another one through the air.
But Cates is quick to spread the love among his offensive mates.
“There were kind of a lot of situations where receivers were doing a great job of receivers getting penalties in the end zone and things of that nature,” he said. “And up front, we’ve just done a great job of blocking and on the short-yardage situations, we always get that yard.

“So I’m just the recipient of a lot of good teamwork.”

While the smash-mouth style of scoring from just a few yards out of the end zone are some of the hardest yards he’s compiled, nothing is more satisfying than breaking a long run for a major. Even with all his trips to the end zone this year, it’s something that’s eluded Cates.

“I’m not sure what my longest TD is, but I don’t think it’s over 20. It’s been in that 15-yard range,” he said. “I had an 83-yarder but I got caught on the 10, so I won’t talk any more about that one.

“I’ve had a couple long runs, but the receivers seem to get all the long TDs. It doesn’t matter to me as long as we’re scoring.”

Cates finished the regular-season fifth among rushers with 1,054 yards on 203 carries. While the short-yardage touchdowns might have hurt his stats, he still ended up with an average carry of 5.2 yards.

“It’s been a blessing, man. It’s really about staying healthy,” he said. “Like I said, it’s teamwork in tough yardage. I like to pride myself on being a tough, short-yardage back and always able to get that yard.

“As an offensive line and backfield, we’ve been getting it done.”

It was the second time the running back surpassed the 1,000-yard mark. His career high was 1,229 yards in 2008, but that year he only had 14 touchdowns.

Finding the end zone was a trend he continued into the playoffs, scoring a rushing touchdown in both the West semifinal against the B.C. Lions and last week’s divisional final against the Calgary Stampeders.

He’s looking to continue the streak on Sunday.

“I hope so, man,” he said. “It’s going to be hard to deny me from getting in the end zone. That’s my focus, I’m trying to come out and have one of my best games of the year, if not the best, and scoring would definitely be a part of that.

“My goal is to help our team any way I can, but to put some points up myself and add to the scoring total would be nice.”

gerry.moddejonge@sunmedia.ca