DOUBLE D FEELING LOVE

REGINA -- Darian Durant has the guts to say it. He's going for greatness.

"I want to make history here," said the quarterback yesterday as he stood on the field where Ron Lancaster made so much history dating back to 1976, the last time the Saskatchewan Roughriders finished first.

"I can feel that this is the start of something special. Not too many quarterbacks are here more than three or four years," he said, and revealed that he'd be quite happy to stay here for a career like the famed Little General.

And that's the kind of career he's decided he can create here if he can continue to grow into the situation he's created for himself.

Already, Durant says, he can feel the love.

"I can feel that my teammates are behind me. It seems like the province is behind me. You can tell. It's something you can feel here.

"There were a lot of questions in the air coming into the season about our quarterbacking. I'm not hearing those questions anymore."

Durant is 10-4 as a starter as he takes his team against Edmonton here today. The last time Durant huddled up against the Eskimos, he was 6-0 as a starter, but that's another story.
If you're looking for a reason why the team many projected for fourth in the Western Conference can be alone in first place with a win here today, it's the development of their quarterback.

It's a quarterback's league and the Roughriders and their fans are really beginning to believe they have one.

Ken Miller, the Saskatchewan coach who looks like he just climbed off a combine, says it's important to remember Durant is a work in progress.

"Darian has improved dramatically. He wasn't nearly as consistent as we needed him to be and he still isn't as consistent as we're going to need him to be. But he's improved. And as he's improved our offence has improved and we've been able to make it a more sophisticated offence than we were able to do early in the season."

"I'm starting to settle down a bit," says the QB who has the fourth best set of statistics at the position in the league this year with 167 completions in 295 attempts for 2,304 yards.
"I feel good about what's going on. I feel good about our players. My comfort level is better. The more and more reps I have and the more and more different looks I see from defences, the more the game slows down for me."

He says being 10-4 is a good stat to have right now, not so much because of what it says about him but because of what it says about the team around him.

"I think it says a lot about the team. There are not a lot of young quarterbacks who are welcomed like I've been welcomed by this team and given the kind of support that allows me to have success right away," he said.

In a league where the only marquee men at the position have been Ricky Ray, Henry Burris and Anthony Calvillo in recent years, all of a sudden with Quinton Porter in Hamilton and Durant here, there are new applicants knocking at the door for long-term membership in their exclusive club. And that's making it a better league.

TERRY.JONES@SUNMEDIA.CA