Chris Jones guided the Saskatchewan Roughriders to a 12-6 record and their first home playoff game since 2013, that was enough to earn him CFL Coach of the Year honours.

Jones edged out Ottawa Redblacks head coach Rick Campbell for the award at the 2018 CFL Awards on Thursday night in Edmonton. The Riders' head coach received 41-of-60 first-place votes.

"This is a big honour, I accept this award [and] it ain't about me I can assure you, I've got just a tremendous staff, our operations people are great, our organization with Craig [Reynolds], Wayne and you guys with the board, we've got an outstanding group in Regina," said Jones during his acceptance speech.

Since taking over as the Riders' head coach and general manager, Jones has led the team to a better record in each of the three seasons, going from 5-13 in 2016 to 10-8 in 2017 and then 12-6 this season to finish second in the West Division.

This is the first career Coach of the Year award for Jones and he's the fifth coach in Riders' history to win the award, the last being Corey Chamblin in 2013.

Now in his 16th season in the CFL, Jones said he's grown to love the Canadian game, "From South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, a small town of 2,500, you came up here in '02 thinking, 'I'll just go up there for a few years,'" said Jones. "This is such an outstanding league, a bunch of great people the people in this room, you don't realize exactly how good they are until you’ve been around them for as long as I have."

Riders receiver Jordan Williams-Lambert lost the Most Outstanding Rookie honour to Ottawa kicker Lewis Ward.

Calgary quarterback Bo-Levi Mitchell won the Most Outstanding Player award for the second time in his career, beating Hamilton Tiger-Cats quarterback Jeremiah Masoli.