AI-assisted summary The 2026 World Cup will feature an expanded field of 48 teams. Teams will be sorted into 12 groups of four during the official draw. The World Cup draw is scheduled to take place on December 5 in Washington, D.C. USA TODAY Sports will host a Q&A session on December 4 to discuss the upcoming tournament. The anticipation ...
College Football Playoff structure allows 7-5 Duke to remain in the hunt for a bid, while better teams are out. Conference expansion makes you wonder whether automatic bids should be part of CFP. Committee catches a lot of heat, but it’s not responsible for playoff structure. Tell me what’s wrong with this picture. Unranked Duke, at 7-5, remains alive for ...
The penultimate College Football Playoff rankings serve as a table setter for Selection Sunday five days later with the majority of teams in at-large consideration not playing in conference championship games. That means the fifth release of the season Tuesday, Dec. 2, was important in establishing a pecking order – both for seeds and for teams fighting to make the ...
The Toronto Blue Jays are not hesitating to fortify the backbone of their success the past four seasons: Starting pitching. On the same day they announced the signing of Dylan Cease to a $210 million contract, the club agreed to a three-year, $30 million deal with another right-handed starter, Cody Ponce, a person with direct knowledge of the deal confirmed ...
There was the Thanksgiving triple-header loaded with excitement, a Black Friday game that gave the NFC a new No. 1 seed, a massive upset of the NFL’s top team, a surging second-year quarterback taking over as MVP favorite and more interceptions from the league’s co-leaders in the stat. In the middle of it all, as always, were the quarterbacks. One ...
Pray for Jake Paul. So said heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk when asked about the upcoming boxing match between Paul and former world champion Anthony Joshua. “If Anthony Joshua wants, he (can) kill this guy,’’ Usyk told Boxing Scene, comparing Joshua to a Rolls-Royce and Paul to a Fiat. “… I will pray (for) Jake Paul because I want (to) fight ...
The University of Colorado’s athletic department is projecting that it will run a $27 million deficit during the current fiscal year ending in June 2026, in addition to needing $11.9 million in institutional support from the university and $2.2 million from student fees, according to budget figures obtained by USA TODAY Sports. Those numbers are not final. The athletic department ...
The UConn Huskies women’s basketball team can beat you many different ways, as evidenced by the defending champion’s wire-to-wire 85-51 win over the South Florida Bulls on Tuesday. The No. 1 Huskies can beat you with their balanced scoring and depth, finishing with four players in double-digits. Sophomore forward Sarah Strong led the way with 14 points and 10 rebounds ...
Williamson has already dealt with injuries during the 2025-26 season. On Nov. 19, he had just returned from a two-week absence while nursing a hamstring issue. He’d played in five of the Pelicans’ last seven games since his return, but Pels’ fans knew something was wrong in the air when he was sidelined for the team’s contest against the Los ...
Denny Hamlin, the NASCAR driver and co-owner of 23XI Racing with Michael Jordan, returned to the witness stand on Day 2 of the NASCAR antitrust trial. From their own attorney, Hamlin fielded a question that cuts to the heart of the federal lawsuit. Was it a hard decision not to sign the charter agreement this year? The costly charter agreements guarantee ...