{"id":83045,"date":"2025-08-20T06:46:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T06:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/83045\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T06:46:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T06:46:12","slug":"edmonton-elks-qb-cody-fajardo-justin-rankin-has-got-my-vote-for-m-o-p","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/83045\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton Elks QB Cody Fajardo: Justin Rankin has ‘got my vote for M.O.P.’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: CFL<\/p>\n

Edmonton Elks quarterback Cody Fajardo doesn\u2019t get a vote for Most Outstanding Player but if he did, he\u2019d use it on teammate Justin Rankin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just such a dynamic player, he\u2019s got my vote for M.O.P. He\u2019s an incredible player that\u2019s fun to be a round \u2014 a great locker room guy, a good glue guy, and a guy that cares about ball,\u201d Fajardo told the media in Edmonton<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s the smartest running back I\u2019ve ever been around. He\u2019s in the quarterback meetings, he\u2019s in the receiver meetings, he\u2019s listening to their splits, depths, and he\u2019s really taking in all the coaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rankin has rushed for 400 yards, caught 33 passes for 427 yards, and scored five touchdowns over nine games to start the season. He\u2019s currently Edmonton\u2019s second-leading receiver behind wideout Steven Dunbar Jr., who is only 57 yards ahead of him.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old\u2019s not far off the pace to record 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards this season, a feat no CFL player has ever accomplished in the same year. Andrew Harris is the closest to doing so, falling 143 receiving yards shy of the mark in 2017.<\/p>\n

Rankin attended training camp with the Elks as a receiver last season before being brought back as a running back two months later. He made his regular-season debut in August and spent 11 games rotating alongside Kevin Brown and Javon Leake. The native of Oberlin, Ohio rushed for 765 yards and five touchdowns with his average of 7.8 yards per carry ranking first among CFL running backs.<\/p>\n

The five-foot-ten, 215-pound ball-carrier didn\u2019t take a traditional path to the CFL, earning All-IFL honours with the Frisco Fighters and Bay Area Panthers prior to coming north. Regardless, he\u2019s become a difference-maker and is one of the primary reasons the Elks have won back-to-back games for the first time this season.<\/p>\n

Edmonton will look to make it three in a row this week when the team visits the Ottawa Redblacks, who are expected to be without Dru Brown due to a knee injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going for the hat trick and that\u2019s the number one goal this week,\u201d said Fajardo. \u201cIt\u2019s two teams that are clawing, scraping, doing whatever we can for momentum at this point in the season \u2014 both teams that are fighting for any position that we can make, so it\u2019s not going to be an easy task.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Elks (3-6) will visit the Ottawa Redblacks (3-7) at TD Place Stadium on Friday, August 22 with kickoff slated for 7:30 p.m. EDT. The Elks are coming off a 28-20 win over the Toronto Argonauts, while the Redblacks lost on a walk-off field goal to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n

The weather forecast in Ottawa calls for a high of 28 degrees with a mix of sun and cloud. The game will be broadcast on TSN and RDS in Canada and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune-in on 880 CHED in Edmonton and TSN 1200 in Ottawa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: CFL Edmonton Elks quarterback Cody Fajardo doesn\u2019t get a vote for Most Outstanding Player but if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-83045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}