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Chad Kelly blames Toronto Argonauts struggles on World Cup
FIFA's takeover of 11 NFL stadiums (in which 13 teams play) has created various complications and annoyances, including the displacement of the New York Giants to West Virginia for training camp. It's had a more pronounced impact on the CFL, which had started its season before the first World Cup game was played. esporist.com
Toronto quarterback Chad Kelly attributes his team's early-season struggles to the fact that the commandeering of its stadium, BMO Field, for World Cup games will result in a seven-game road trip to open the campaign.
“This is obviously something unprecedented," Kelly said after Toronto's 30-21 loss at Winnipeg, via JC Abbott of 3DownNation.com. "No professional team has had to do what we’re doing right now with five straight away games, back-to-back-to-back leaving the East to go West, and it’s not easy. It’s definitely not easy. I think we’ve got to dig down. We’ve got Hamilton next; that’s close by. We have to just make it happen. We’ve got to make it work."
Although the last of six World Cup games at BMO Field in Toronto was played on July 2, the stadium remains unavailable as temporary stands for the World Cup are removed.
And the inconvenience extends beyond the games. BMO Field also serves as the Argonauts’ practice field and main offices. Their temporary home base is more than 50 miles away from Toronto.
"We’re traveling so much every single day," Kelly said. "Some guys are living in Toronto and driving an hour. This is something that’s very hard. It’s very hard from top to bottom, and we’re dealing with it, trying to make it the best we can work. It’s just what it is right now."
It's not as if the Argonauts will make up for their absence from home with a long stretch of Toronto games. Three of their home games will have been played on the road, against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Toronto has played five games on the road, winning two of them, with two more road games to come. Toronto won't play its first true home game on August 6, with six of the final 11 games at BMO Field.
England-India ODI Underway at Edgbaston
The first men's ODI between England and India commenced at 11am BST at Edgbaston. After two overs, England is 8-0 with Phil Duckett on 4 and Jacob Bethell yet to score. Indian bowlers Prasidh Krishna and Jasprit Bumrah have already shown significant movement through the air and off the pitch.
Bumrah, in particular, troubled Duckett with his opening over, including an inswinger that hit the batsman on the shin, though it was deemed outside leg. Krishna continued the pressure with a delivery that kept low and beat the keeper. Both teams are looking to establish early dominance in this crucial series opener.
NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament To Seed Top 16 Teams By True Ranking In 2027
Beginning with next year’s NCAA women's basketball tournament, the top 16 teams will be placed in the bracket in their true ranking regardless of conference affiliation. In the past, the top four teams in a conference would be placed in different regions to protect them from playing each other until the Final Four. For example, the tournament this past season had four SEC teams in the top eight overall seeds. Texas was third, South Carolina fourth, LSU fifth and Vanderbilt seventh. LSU was dropped down to seventh and Vanderbilt eighth in the bracketing to avoid having them be in the same regions. This also had knock-on effects for the pathway out of each region and into the Final Four, as UConn coach Geno Auriemma pointed out when asked about the possibility of facing his former player and assistant coach, Shea Ralph, in the tournament, saying he found it "hard to believe" that the Commodores were merely the eighth-ranked team in the country. Now if that happened going forward, the teams would remain where their seeds should have them, keeping a team from being ranked lower than it should be. "We put a lot of time into establishing those top 16 teams in the order they go in," NCAA women's basketball committee chair Amanda Braun said in a phone interview. "You're splitting hairs to decide who has the edge and some of that is undone by those principles. To all of us, the work we did and the work those teams did justifies keeping them where they are in that group of 16." The men's selection committee will still separate out the top four seeds in each conference and put them in different regions. The change would potentially only really affect the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12 as those were the only conferences that had four or more teams in the NCAA field. The women's tournament has started giving financial incentives — units — to teams for each round they advance in the tournament the past two seasons. Braun said that it wasn't brought up at all during the entire week of meetings that the committee had. The change comes on the heels of the NCAA expanding its tournament field to 76 teams starting in 2027. The Associated Press contributed to this report.