Trevor Harris and Cody Fajardo are ready for a game of 7s.

Harris (Saskatchewan Roughriders) and Cody Fajardo (Edmonton Elks) will be the starting quarterbacks when their teams meet on Saturday at Commonwealth Stadium.

They have uniform No. 7 in common, along with all of this!

• Harris and Fajardo were teammates with the Toronto Argonauts for the latter portion of the 2015 CFL season. Harris was then a fourth-year Argo. Fajardo joined the team’s practice roster on Oct. 8 of that year.

• Both quarterbacks had a reason to celebrate the events of July 14, 2016. Harris, in his first game against Toronto, completed 28 of 31 passes for 392 yards to lead the Ottawa REDBLACKS to a 30-20 victory at BMO Field. His completion percentage (90.3) was then a CFL single-game record. Harris also ran for a one-yard touchdown — as did Fajardo in his capacity as the Argonauts’ short-yardage quarterback. It was the first of 46 CFL touchdowns (and counting) for Fajardo.

• Harris and Fajardo have both enjoyed success as the marquee quarterback in Saskatchewan. In 2019, Fajardo earned All-CFL honours and was named the West Division’s Most Outstanding Player en route to helping Saskatchewan finish first with a record of 13-5. Harris, a divisional All-CFL selection last season, is now behind centre for a Saskatchewan side that carries a league-best 10-3 slate into today’s game.

• The looming Roughriders-Elks contest will feature the CFL’s all-time leaders in completion percentage. Fajardo heads the list at 71.65 (1,741-for-2,430). Harris is close behind at 70.85 (3,004-for-4,240).

More? Why, of course!

• At season’s end, Harris and Fajardo will almost certainly occupy the top five spots on the Roughriders’ all-time single-season completion-percentage list. In 2024, Harris (72.42%) edged Fajardo’s Club record of 71.46% (set in 2019). Fajardo subsequently posted percentages of 70.32 (in 2022) and 69.56 (2021). Currently at 72.03%, Harris could very well surpass the team record he established last season.

“I’ve always thought Cody Fajardo is a great quarterback,” Harris said earlier this week. “I’ve been a defender of him. I love him.

“He’s a great guy and a good man of faith as well. He’s somebody I’ve been in touch with throughout my career. I was with him in Toronto, many moons ago.

“He has proven himself year after year and people continue to count him out. He has done a great job as a quarterback (in Edmonton). He does a good job of taking what the defence gives him and using his legs when he needs to. He puts them in a position where they have a chance to win every week.”

Fajardo began this season as the Elks’ No. 2 quarterback before being elevated to front-line duty for a July 25 game at Mosaic Stadium.

He threw two touchdown passes, as did Harris, during a game that Saskatchewan won, 21-18.

Edmonton was 1-4 before Fajardo was handed the reins. Since then, the Elks are 4-5, but four of the losses have been by a combined 11 points.

As for Harris, the Roughriders sport a 20-9 regular-season record in games he has started since joining the team in 2023.

Fajardo was 19-10 — just one victory behind Harris’s current slate — after his first 29 starts in green and white.

So close … as usual.

CHANGES AND CHUCKLES

Fajardo offered a classic quip when asked for his reaction to the CFL’s decision to move the goal posts to the back of the end zone, effective with the 2027 season.

In the 2019 Western Final, remember, Fajardo hit the crossbar with a last-second pass that was intended for Kyran Moore — who appeared to have a step on a Winnipeg Blue Bombers defender in Mosaic Stadium’s north end zone.

“I’m going to try and petition to make that the ‘Cody Fajardo rule’ to get the goal post put back in the end zone,” Fajardo told reporters in Edmonton. “If I could get my name attached to that somehow, maybe that’s the legacy I leave on the CFL.”

When the Elks were in Toronto on Sept. 13, Argonauts Head Coach Ryan Dinwiddie emphatically celebrated Lirim Hajrullahu’s last-play, game-winning field goal by gesturing at the Edmonton bench. This was possible because the teams’ benches were side by side at BMO Field.

Per the newly announced changes, the benches must be on opposite sides of the field, beginning next season.

“The sideline thing, I was a little upset about,” Roughriders Head Coach Corey Mace joked. “I had just started training. I was ready for Dinwiddie.

“Other than that, I guess I don’t have to work out again.”

Elks Head Coach Mark Kilam also chimed in, joking with the Edmonton media that “I’m definitely going to miss being on the same sideline as the Argos.”

CRUSHING THE CALCULATOR

Beginning in 2027, the depth of CFL end zones will be reduced from 20 yards to 15. Will this have an adverse effect upon scoring, as some observers have suggested/feared?

Most likely, no.

In fact, the opposite may very well occur.

The shortening of the end zone by five yards isn’t anything new. It happened across the board in 1986, when 25-yards-deep end zones became 20.

Over the final four seasons with 25-yard end zones, there was an average of 49.87 points per game. The average increased to 51.35 over the first four seasons with 20-yard end zones.

The lowest average over the eight seasons was in 1985 (45.36). The following year, with smaller end zones, the average increased to 47.90 before soaring to 53.07 in 1987.

Based on that data, one could reasonably conclude that a smaller end zone does not necessarily lead to a reduction in points. The numbers, in fact, indicate the opposite could be true.

Consider, too, that with the goal posts moving to the end line in 2027, aerial options available to quarterbacks and receivers should be broadened.

What if the adjustment in the timing of the games results in more plays?

In 1991, there was an average of 166.6 plays over the Roughriders’ first 13 games. This year’s 13-game average: 143.8.

The difference over 34 years is 22.8 plays per game — a 13.71-per-cent decrease.

If the new 35-second clock eliminates the current abundance of dead time (with the game clock still ticking) before play is whistled in, there should be more snaps … and more points.

The timing adjustment, in this assessment, will improve the pace of the game and lead to more plays — and, thus, more scoring.

SHORT SNORTS

• This is too good not to share! On Aug. 19, 1964, the Roughriders converted a second-and-44 situation against the host B.C. Lions. Lancaster found Bob Good for a 33-yard completion to make it third-and-11. Lancaster and Good then connected for 20-plus yards and a first down.

• Jake Wieneke, a Roughriders receiver in 2023, will be inducted into the South Dakota State Jackrabbit Sports Hall of Fame tonight in Brookings, S.D. Jake, a Hall of Fame person in general, joins two other former members of the Roughriders’ active roster in the SDSU sports shrine — Ted Wahl (quarterback, 1991) and Josh Ranek (running back, 2007). Jeff Tiefenthaler, a receiver who was on Saskatchewan’s practice roster in 1987, has also been enshrined. (Wieneke eclipsed Tiefenthaler’s SDSU career receiving yardage record in 2016.)

• The Saskatchewan Roughrider Foundation presented the Regina Thunder with a cheque for $80,000 on Wednesday, when the Prairie Football Conference team held its annual Dinner of Champions. Over the past year, the Foundation has contributed a record $1.8 million to amateur football in Saskatchewan. The money was generated by sales of Roughrider Foundation 50/50 tickets. To participate in Saturday’s draw, held in conjunction with the Roughriders-Elks game, CLICK HERE.

ROLL CREDITS …

• Nice people who deserve a plug: Deb Thompson, Trevor Harris, Cody Fajardo, Ken McCaw, Nik Patterson, Shea Patterson, Jay Onrait, Ron Podbielski, Dohnte Meyers, Marcus Sayles, Philippe Gagnon, Greg Mayer, Gini Parent, Sam Berg, Dylan Samberg, Shawn Bane Jr., Samuel Emilus, Steve Mazurak, Barry Clarke, Eva Fletcher, Cal Filson, Frank Kovacs, Nelson Bird, Rylee Cohen, Liza Donnelly, Dr. Jen Johnston, Jake Wieneke and Kate Pettersen.