Nevada Sports Net columnist Chris Murray is known to be a bit wordy, so we’re giving him 1,000 words (but no more than that) every Friday to share his thoughts from the week that was in the world of sports.

* CANADIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE fans might dub former Nevada quarterback Cody Fajardo a journeyman in the league. He’d more aptly be described as a star. From a true transactional standpoint, Fajardo has been a journeyman, playing for five of the league’s nine teams, a rarity for a quarterback. But he’s also been one of the league’s most valuable players since 2019, a six-season stretch that has seen him throw for 19,534 yards, rush for another 2,261 and account for 119 touchdowns. But for whatever reason, no CFL franchise has valued Fajardo the way he deserved to be valued.

* ALL FAJARDO HAS done in his CFL career is put up big stats and win a lot of games. He won a Grey Cup championship as a backup in Toronto in 2017, led Saskatchewan to a West Division regular-season title in 2019 and engineered Montreal to one of the league’s most unlikely recent Grey Cup title runs in 2023. Overall, he’s 47-33-1 as a CFL starter, this despite inheriting less-than-ideal situations in Saskatchewan and his most recent stop, Edmonton. But he’s always made his team better … and then that team has looked to replace him shortly thereafter.

* MAYBE THAT’S A CFL thing, but Fajardo is doing it again this year. After leading Montreal to the Grey Cup title in 2023, he had a solid but injury-plagued 2024. Despite having one year left on his contract, Montreal discarded Fajardo in the offseason, just as Saskatchewan had a couple of years prior. The Alouettes gave a long-term deal to Fajardo’s backup, the up-and-coming Davis Alexander, who was ineffective and then injured with Montreal slipping to 5-7 after going 23-12-1 in Fajardo’s two seasons as a starter. Instead of keeping Fajardo this offseason, he was dealt to Edmonton, which was coming off five straight losing seasons.

* DESPITE FAJARDO BEING a relative sure thing at quarterback, he did not begin this season as Edmonton’s starter. That job went to the unproven Tre Ford, who is Canadian, and tie goes to the Canadian in the CFL. But after Edmonton’s 1-4 start, who did the team turn to? Captain Cody, who is once again doing his thing. The Elks have won four of their last five games with Fajardo knocking off his former team, Montreal, in thrilling fashion last month before leading his team to a huge win over Calgary last week. With six regular-season games remaining, Edmonton is now 5-7 with its playoff odds off life support.

* FAJARDO ONCE AGAIN leads the CFL in accuracy, completing 75.5 percent of his passes with his 8.9 yards per attempt the second best of his career. He’s also averaging 5.3 yards per rush and has accounted for 13 touchdowns against just three interceptions. He’s third in the CFL in quarterback efficiency and has pumped life into the Elks, with this perhaps being his most impressive team resurrection yet given Edmonton’s meager recent history and so-so supporting cast. The Elks remain a long shot to win the Grey Cup, but with Fajardo at the commands you never know.

* WHILE EVERY PLAYER’S goal is to reach the NFL, Fajardo has had quite the CFL career. In addition to his two Grey Cup titles and Grey Cup MVP, he’s the league’s all-time leader in completion percentage, led the league in passing yards once and won the Jeff Nicklin Memorial Trophy, which goes to the West Division’s top player. The CFL All-Star is only 33 years old, so he could have a season or two left in him if he doesn’t want to retire back home to Reno just yet. If he does continue playing, hopefully the Elks believe in him long term, support he’s rarely been afford during his 10-year CFL career.

* IT STILL AMAZES me Nevada was never able to fully capitalize on Fajardo’s four-year career, which included the Wolf Pack going 25-26 from 2011-14, his four seasons as a starter. Nevada had the perfect successor to Colin Kaepernick coming out of its historic 2010 season and was perfectly average shortly after. There were a multitude of reasons. The 2011 team collapsed with a WAC title on the line, the 2012 team had arguably the worst defense in program history, the 2013 team was led by a first-time head coach, Brian Polian, who wasn’t quite ready for the job and the 2014 team only had to beat a 6-8 Fresno State team at home to reach the Mountain West title game but lost 40-20.

* I WOULD RANK not maximizing Fajardo’s four-year window up there with Nevada men’s basketball not maximizing Deonte Burton’s four-year window as one of the great fumbles in the Wolf Pack’s post-2000 history. It’s not like quarterbacks of Fajardo’s ilk come through Nevada and stay put for four seasons. Since his graduation, the Wolf Pack has run through Tyler Stewart, Ty Gangi, Kaymen Cureton, Malik Henry, Carson Strong, Shane Illingworth, Nate Cox, Brendon Lewis and now Chubba Purdy as starting quarterback options. Outside of Strong and to a lesser degree Lewis, that shows you Fajardo’s value.

* SPEAKING OF QUARTERBACK, it’ll be interesting to see how Purdy responds Saturday against Middle Tennessee after some light, but fair, criticism of his play from current Nevada head coach Jeff Choate. The Wolf Pack never had a true quarterback competition this fall with Purdy being anointed the starter after the first day of camp, with Choate adding he’s “not into musical chairs” at the position. But Nevada’s pass game has struggled in its first two outings with Choate saying some of Purdy’s reads were wrong last week against Sacramento State, dubbing his performance “frantic.”

* NOBODY QUESTIONS PURDY’S leadership skills, toughness or running ability. But ultimately a quarterback must be able to operate a passing attack and orchestrate an offense, and Nevada has just one touchdown drive in Purdy’s 18 possessions this season, and that one came on a 45-yard field after a Sacramento State turnover on downs last week. Given his running ability, I’d give Purdy a decent amount of leash to get things sorted out. But that sorting out has to come this week against Middle Tennessee, a consensus bottom-five team in the FBS. If Nevada doesn’t post 28-plus points against the Blue Raiders, there’s a problem. Heck, Austin Peay, an FCS team, even put up 34 points on Middle Tennessee.

Columnist Chris Murray provides insight on Northern Nevada sports. Contact him at crmurray@sbgtv.com or follow him on Twitter @ByChrisMurray.