Week 0 Is Real Football, and It’s Leaving the Country

The actual college football season starts this weekend, and it starts with a flight.

North Carolina vs. TCU, Saturday, 12 p.m. ET (ESPN), Aviva Stadium, Dublin. Year 2 of the Bill Belichick experiment, and it’s opening with the program’s first-ever game outside the country. Make of that what you will.

NC State at Virginia, Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET (ESPN). All-ACC, moved from Rio to Charlottesville — still a real conference game with real stakes, just with better travel logistics now.

USC vs. San Jose State, Saturday, 3 p.m. ET (NBC). The only ranked team playing this weekend. No. 14 has no excuse not to look the part.

Memphis at UNLV, Saturday, 10 p.m. ET (FOX). The nightcap. West Coast kickoff for a sport that just spent seven months pretending it wasn’t dead.

Final Word: One Saturday, four time zones, and the whole sport waking back up at once.

Meanwhile, Fake Football Gets One Last Look

NFL Preseason, Week 3. The last dress rehearsal before Tuesday’s cutdown to 53. Whatever you see this weekend is the last audition tape for guys fighting for a locker.

Soccer, Firing on All Cylinders

Bayern Munich vs. VfB Stuttgart, Friday, 2:30 p.m. ET. Bundesliga’s season opener — Kompany defending the title from the jump.

Crystal Palace vs. Man City, Friday, 3 p.m. ET (Peacock). City coming off a win, Palace looking to be the league’s most annoying underdog again.

Real Madrid vs. Málaga, Sunday. Mourinho’s Bernabéu debut. Whatever’s left in the tank from the Espanyol trip gets tested at home.

Milan vs. Venezia, Friday. Reigning champs, home crowd, a newly promoted side that’s already learned this league doesn’t care about your feelings.

Two Ovals, One Playoff Cutoff

NASCAR — Coke Zero Sugar 400, Daytona, Saturday night (NBC). Regular-season finale. Win Saturday and lock into the Chase; lose and start doing math nobody wants to do.

IndyCar — Milwaukee Mile doubleheader, Saturday and Sunday (FOX). The only doubleheader on the calendar. Palou’s chasing a fourth straight title and Milwaukee’s the kind of short oval that turns championships into arguments.

Baseball’s Actual Stakes

Red Sox at Yankees, four games, Friday–Sunday. AL East, both clubs jockeying for playoff position with a month left to sort it out. This is the series that decides who’s playing in October and who’s watching it.

Under the Radar: A Mountain in Italy

UCI Mountain Bike World Championships, Val di Sole, Italy, streaming on FloBikes. Cross-country and downhill finals land this weekend — the world championship of a sport most of you have never watched a full run of. Tom Pidcock, Mathieu van der Poel, and Valentina Höll headline; this is the second-biggest event on the mountain biking calendar behind the Olympics, and it airs to almost nobody in this country.

Final Word: Belichick’s in Dublin, Milwaukee’s got a doubleheader, and somewhere in the Dolomites people are throwing bikes down a mountain for a rainbow jersey. Pick your chaos.