Jamestown native and Eastern Michigan quarterback Cole Snyder runs the ball against Washington during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Seattle. Snyder announced on X that he has signed with the Edmonton Elks of the Canadian Football League. AP photo

Cole Snyder is heading north of the border to continue his football career.

Perez Sports, the agency that represents Snyder, announced Monday morning on X that the 2019 Southwestern Central School graduate has signed with the Edmonton Elks of the Canadian Football League.

Signing with a CFL team was something Snyder alluded to less than a month ago when he was preparing for rookie mini camp with the Detroit Lions.

“Obviously my dream wasn’t to play in the CFL, it was to play in the NFL, but any opportunity that presents itself, I was going to take a swing and go full speed ahead,” he said. ” … I’m going to exhaust all of my NFL opportunities before the CFL. If that is where God takes me, to the CFL, I’ll be super fortunate to be playing professional football there as well.”

Edmonton started training camp last Friday and will play in its first preseason game Saturday at Calgary. The Elks will also host the BC Lions in their second preseason game Friday, May 30 before closing training camp the following day.

The CFL regular season begins Saturday, June 7 when the Elks travel to Vancouver to take on the Lions at BC Place.

Edmonton currently features three other quarterbacks on its roster. Cody Fajardo is a 33-year-old from the University of Nevada, Tre Ford is a 27-year-old from the University of Waterloo and William McElvain is a 25-year-old from the University of Central Arkansas.

McLeod Bethel-Thompson was the Elks’ primary quarterback in 2024. He completed 318 of 468 passes for 3,748 yards and 24 touchdowns along with 11 interceptions. Ford was on the roster last season and completed 84 of 117 passes for 1,137 yards. He threw 10 touchdowns and five interceptions.

Bethel-Thompson’s rights were traded to the Montreal Alouettes in the offseason for Fajardo. Last season with the Alouettes, Fajardo completed 268 of 364 passes for 3,105 yards and 16 touchdowns with seven interceptions.

Snyder is attempting to begin a professional career after a six-year collegiate career that featured stops at Rutgers, Buffalo and Eastern Michigan.

In his lone season with Eastern Michigan, Snyder delivered a standout performance, starting all 12 games in 2024 — making him only the fifth EMU quarterback to do so since 2004.

Snyder amassed 3,014 total yards of offense, ranking sixth on the program’s single-season record list and becoming the first Eagle to achieve the feat since 2021. His 240 completions (seventh all-time) on 402 attempts (ninth all-time) yielded 2,685 passing yards and 15 touchdowns, supplemented by 329 rushing yards and four additional scores. Snyder threw for a career-high 354 yards and two touchdowns at Akron on Oct. 26.

The year in Ypsilanti came on the heels of two seasons as the starting quarterback at Snyder’s “hometown” University at Buffalo. During that time, the Bulls went 10-15, including 6-14 in the Mid-American Conference. Snyder completed 474 of 833 passes for 5,139 yards and 31 touchdowns during his time in Amherst.

His career started in the Big Ten Conference at Rutgers University where he saw limited playing time during three seasons.

Snyder was The Post-Journal Player of the Year in 2018 at Southwestern. During his career as a Trojan, he completed 376 passes for 5,302 yards and 75 touchdowns.

“Hopefully I have a long professional career and can play football as long as I can,” Snyder said last month. “I might get that opportunity so it’s pretty incredible.”