Coach Ryan Dinwiddie wants to see what he has in Bryson Barnes, but his 0-13 CFL club needs to enjoy some success, too.

The television camera mercilessly zoomed in on Ryan Dinwiddie around 10 p.m. last Saturday.

It caught the Ottawa Redblacks coach chuckling to himself.

“It was kind of one of those, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’ moments,” Dinwiddie remembered Friday morning.

The Redblacks had just lost their second consecutive game on the final play, this time done in by an unlikely 62-yard field goal (one yard shy of the Canadian Football League record) off the toe of Calgary Stampeders veteran placekicker Rene Paredes.

On Saturday afternoon at TD Place, the two teams square off again with the 0-13 Redblacks still attempting to collect their first win of this season and slam the brakes on a CFL modern-day 19-game losing streak.

The Stampeders, at 6-8, are battling for a playoff spot in the West Division.

“You could feel the energy on the sideline all game,” Dinwiddie said, harkening back to last weekend’s 40-38 defeat. “I think that’s why we played the way we did. I think we’re playing with more confidence now … and then you see something like that. It’s just like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me, man.’

“I felt like the players deserved to win. I thought they played well enough to win that football game. Unfortunately, you know, Rene made a great kick.”

Dinwiddie wants that first victory so bad he can taste it.

Not for himself.

Not because he doesn’t want to become the first coach of a CFL team to have a winless season.

He wants it for the players.

“I just want to get the monkey off their back a bit,” he said. “I feel like the players have been working hard. They’ve been loyal to the process. We just haven’t played good enough football. But, yeah, it’d be great to get a win for them. I mean, obviously for everybody in the building, the whole organization. But you know, for the players, most importantly.

“I can feel their pain.”

MacLeod Bethel-Thompson will be making his second start at quarterback for Ottawa.

He put up some stellar numbers against the Stamps in his first start, throwing five touchdown passes against one interception, while completing 27 of 48 passes for 379 yards.

The performance had people wondering why it took so long for Dinwiddie to bench Jake Maier, but Maier’s also had five 300-plus-yard games this season.

With Bethel-Thompson 38 years old and Maier 29 — and with Ottawa officially eliminated from this season’s playoff race — the Redblacks need to find out what they have in Bryson Barnes, the 24-year-old rookie who has served as their third-string and short-yardage QB.

Barnes has thrown just 10 passes and completed eight in spot duty.

Getting that highly prioritized first win in the pocket would increase Dinwiddie’s chances of putting Barnes in down the stretch.

“Yeah, it’ll be easier to do that, right?” Dinwiddie said. “I mean, I think Bryson can go out there and win football games for us, too. But he’s a little young. He’s green. I don’t want to throw him out too quickly. Maybe him and Mac play together at some stage through these (last five) games. He might play (Saturday). We’ll see how the game goes.

“But, yeah, we definitely got to get him on the field before the season ends.”

That concern does exist.

“You always worry about young quarterbacks playing too early,” Dinwiddie said. “More so down in the NFL with a first-round pick. You look at the (Las Vegas) Raiders not playing their first–overall pick (Fernando Mendoza). In the CFL game, there’s a big learning curve for rookie quarterbacks, so you just make sure he’s completely ready. It’s tough when he hasn’t got a lot of reps throughout the year, to throw him out there with limited reps.

“He’ll see the field, and, when he sees the field, we expect him to play well.”

A 6-1, 215-pound native of Milford, Utah, Barnes played his college ball at Utah and Utah State before attending the Cleveland Browns minicamp in May. Despite being a late arrival at Redblacks camp, he beat out former Heisman Trophy runner-up Max Duggan for the third-string job in Ottawa.

Called on in short-yardage situations, Barnes has rushed for 69 yards on 33 carries, and he leads the Redblacks with eight touchdowns.

“I think he’s definitely a candidate,” Dinwiddie said when asked if Barnes could become Ottawa’s starter down the road. “He can make plays with his legs. He can scramble. You look across the league, and there’s always a few scrambles each week quarterbacks are making, chunk plays that are (extending) drives. He can be an effective runner and escape the pocket. He’s a big kid. You see he’s doing a good job in the short yardage. He’s a physical runner.

“I wouldn’t compare him to (Chris) Streveler, although I know some people have,” Dinwiddie added of the former NFLer who spent the last two years of his career (2024-2025) as a Winnipeg Blue Bombers backup. “I think he’s a better thrower than Chris. Chris was a little bit more dynamic of a runner, but there are some similarities there.”