THIS CERTAINLY IS STRANGE

By Bob Hughes for EXIT Realty Fusion

What have the Saskatchewan Roughriders done three times in the last four years?If you said, appear in three Grey Cup games, you are correct.

But that’s not the answer.The answer is, three times in the last four years the Roughriders, Canada’s most envied organization, has had to go searching for a new head coach.

Ken Austin came here in 2007. He worked a miracle no other coach in the game had been able to work. He made a star out of quarterback Kerry Joseph, who hadn’t done anything before that Grey Cup win and hasn’t done anything since. Before the champagne had dried, Austin had left the scene for the green, green grass of home, a job at Mississippi.In came Ken Miller.

In three years as head coach, Miller got the Riders to back-to-back Grey Cup games on the strength of quarterback Darian Durant. They lost them both, in 2009 on the biggest miscalculation in CFL history, and this year because they didn’t have the offensive firepower in the second half. Both losses were to Montreal.

So, what does Miller do less than a week after the Grey Cup ended? He surprises quite a few people by announcing that he was resigning as head coach and, at the age of 69, would exclusively be the vice president in charge of football operations.

Normally, coaches who win Grey Cups don’t even consider leaving their teams unless they get a better offer. But, here, it’s like they can’t wait to get out of the hotseat. And, it’s as if CEO Jim Hopson has developed some sort of rent-a-coach program that keeps producing winning teams and Grey Cup contenders.

Go figure.In some ways, likely most ways, it’s flukey the way the Riders lost Austin and Miller. Austin said he had always wanted to coach at Mississippi, a school he played at. So, it was understandable when he jumped at the job. But a year later he had left the school he always wanted to coach at and went to something called Cornell University as a head coach.

Fair enough.Miller was already an official senior citizen when he took over from Austin. So, he was not going to be a long-term head coach. He lasted three years as head coach before the drain on his mind, body and commitment was too much to endure a fourth year. So, he quit.

Somebody asked him why he didn’t “gut it out” for one more year and try to win the Cup. “That,” he replied, “was what I did this year.”It seems logical, then, that Miller had decided before the start of the 2010 season that this likely would be his swan song.

Was he setting the table for his successor when he hired Doug Berry as his offensive coach this season and gave him two titles. Offensive coordinator. And, more telling, Assistant Head Coach.

What does that mean or indicate? It is a promise of sorts.Berry has been a head coach before, in Winnipeg, where he took the Bombers to the 2007 Grey Cup game, representing a woefully weak Eastern Division of the CFL.The Rider Nation is not sold on Berry becoming the head coach here, mostly because of perceived flaws in offensive coaching this season.

The Riders’ offence never really seemed to settle on just what exactly they were all about.So, Doug Berry should not be an automatic choice as head coach, and if Miller is the guy making the final recommendation, then he has to put his loyalties aside, and do what is best for (a) Darian Durant and (b) the team.

There can be no other way.Just as quickly as Austin turned the Riders into a powerhouse of sorts, it all can turn the other way just as quickly. And, we all know how long it can take to salvage a sinking ship.

This choice of head coach will be one of the most critical the team has made in a long time. And, every avenue has to be thoroughly explored before that final decision is arrived at.