Football: Fajardo going along for ‘The Ride’
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He was the one quarterback from Anaheim I figured was too good for this.
Servite’s Cody Fajardo is a known commodity, a three-star recruit who is listed among the top quarterbacks in Southern California by colleague Eric Sondheimer. He completed 65.1% of his passes last season for 1,588 yards and 15 touchdowns with five interceptions while leading the Friars to the Pac-5 Division playoffs.
So how does this qualify Fajardo as an ‘under-the-radar’ quarterback on the new reality sports show ‘The Ride’? It doesn’t.
The premise of the show, which debuts this fall on Fox Sports West, is that eight unheralded quarterbacks will be tutored by an all-star cast of instructors who hope to mold the players into major Division I material and win one a roster spot in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl.
When the PR people from ‘The Ride’ sent out the release earlier this week, they refused to divulge the identity of the participants, only saying that one of the quarterbacks was from Anaheim. Truth be told, Fajardo was the only returning quarterback from Anaheim that I had heard of. So I figured it wasn’t him and started calling other schools. Turns out it was Fajardo.
Servite Coach Troy Thomas said Fajardo has only one scholarship offer, from Towson of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), but he is receiving interest from bigger programs. According to Rivals.com, he is being looked at by Oregon State, Washington State, Wisconsin, Hawaii, San Jose State and Boise State. Not exactly ‘under-the-radar’ schools.
Don’t let the Fox Sports folks let you believe they made Fajardo into some phenom because of a reality show. The guy was already plenty good.
--Ben Bolch