The BC Lions (0-1) invade Toronto’s BMO Field Friday to take on the Toronto Argonauts (1-0) in what will be a clash of two world-class coaches as Canada prepares to celebrate its 150th birthday.
Coming off a win over the rival Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Sunday’s home opener, the Toronto Argonauts (1-0) led by Marc Trestman (Chicago Bears, Montreal Alouettes) will take on the BC Lions led by Wally Buono in a Friday night showdown.
To honor Canada’s 150th anniversary, footballs and referee uniforms will each take on a special look, and players from both teams will don a t-shirt that pays tribute to a notable Canadian player during on-field warmups.
After a dominant showing in Week One, the Argos will look to continue the momentum established on both sides of the ball when they take the field Friday night. Marc Trestman tallied his 60th career CFL win in the contest – his first in Double Blue – improving his winning percentage as a CFL head coach to .659 in 91 regular season games.
In the win, Ricky Ray threw for a career-high 506 passing yards, 124 of which came to newcomer S.J. Green, making his Argos debut. The ‘Dreaded Defence’ was firing on all cylinders as well, holding the Tiger-Cats offence to just 12 first downs and zero touchdowns in the contest.
The Lions, coming off of a tight Week One loss to the Edmonton Eskimos, will look to spoil the party and bounce back to .500 on Friday night. After coming from behind to tie up the contest, the Leos allowed a last-second field goal to fall to 0-1. On Friday night, BC will take the field under the leadership of the CFL’s all-time winningest coach, Wally Buono (266-146-3).
Historically, Trestman and Buono’s teams have squared off eight times in regular season action (2008-11) and emerged with identical 4-4 records.
In the opening weekend win over Hamilton, Argos quarterback Ricky Ray threw for 506 yards while Lions quarterback Jonathan Jennings threw for 264 yards in last week’s loss to Edmonton.
Defensively, Toronto held the Tiger-Cats to just 16 yards rushing a week ago but will be faced with Lions running back Jeremiah Johnson who rushed for 92 yards and a touchdown against the Eskimos.
There is likely no more unusual CFL matchup over the last three years than the Argos and Lions. NO home team has won a game in this head-to-head series across 2014 to 2016 and all three series have been split in this way over the last three years. The last team to win at home came in a July 20, 2013 Toronto home victory. The last four meetings have all been decided in the final 3:00 of the game.
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