At age 39, Roughriders QB Trevor Harris says he hasn’t hit his ceiling

By Canadian Press on December 5, 2025.

Trevor Harris is coming off a dream CFL season, finally winning his first Grey Cup ring as a starting quarterback with an MVP performance in the championship game.

While some in his position might have considered hanging up the cleats, the 39-year-old Saskatchewan Roughriders pivot says he still hasn’t hit his ceiling.

“I’d be shocked if I’m not a better player than I was this year,” Harris said on a Zoom call with reporters Friday, a day after signing a one-year extension with the Roughriders.

“I wouldn’t come back if I thought I was going to plateau or hit my ceiling.”

Harris threw for 302 yards and a Grey Cup-record 85.2 per cent completion rate in a 25-17 win over the Montreal Alouettes in Winnipeg.

That gave the veteran from Waldo, Ohio, his third Grey Cup ring, though the other two came in a backup role.

Harris, who led the Roughriders to a league-best 12-6 regular-season record, said he had a feeling as far back as Labour Day that he would return for a 15th CFL season.

A talk with his wife, Kalie, after the Riders’ Grey Cup victory party helped cement his decision.

“She said, ‘Honey, this is kind of the way to go out. But how can you go out when you’re playing like this, and we enjoy being here so much,” Harris said.

Harris said he decided to wait a week before deciding to ensure his choice wasn’t clouded by the emotional high of winning a championship.

He said he received a text from Kalie during his ride back home with Roughriders running back AJ Ouellette, and “at that point I was like ‘I think I’m coming back to play.”

“I feel like I was supposed to feel different, being this age, we had won the Grey Cup and hoisted it, I thought that I would be like ‘OK, we did it.’

“But I kind of haven’t. I took Monday and Tuesday off, and I was back in the gym Wednesday, ready to keep going.”

Harris, who said he’s “viciously motivated” for the 2026 season, now has the chance to lead the Roughriders to consecutive Grey Cup titles for the first time in franchise history.

“That kind of drives you a little bit, too,” Harris said. “That’s kind of an end-goal thing. Put the cap on at the end. To me, it’s about what can we do today to become a better football team.”

Harris threw for 4,549 yards and 24 touchdowns in the regular season, completing 73.6 per cent of his passes to lead the league.

He enters 2026 ranked 13th all-time in CFL passing yards with 37,697.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2025.

The Canadian Press