Week of August 25: college football's opening weekend arrives

Real, kicked-off, on-the-field college football starts this weekend. The NFL, meanwhile, is between preseason and Week 1, which means the schedule looks lighter than it's about to.

This weekend's openers (Saturday, August 29)

The first wave of the 2026 college football season kicks off this Saturday. It's a lighter slate than next week's, but it's the real thing:

• North Carolina vs. TCU - noon ET, ESPN, at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland (a neutral-site opener across the Atlantic).
• San José State at USC - 3:00 PM ET, NBC. USC enters ranked #14 in the preseason AP Top 25, the highest-ranked team in action this weekend.
• NC State at Virginia - 3:30 PM ET, ESPN.
• Jacksonville State at North Dakota State - 5:30 PM ET, CBS Sports Network, inside the Fargodome.
• Sacramento State at Eastern Michigan - 6:30 PM ET, ESPN+.
• Hawai'i at Stanford - 7:00 PM ET, ACC Network.
• New Mexico State at Florida State - 7:00 PM ET, The CW.
• Memphis at UNLV - late window Saturday night, FOX, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Every one of these, plus the rest of the week's slate, live-updates on the College page as kickoffs approach.

The marquee ranked matchups are one more week out

If you're waiting for the season's headline games, hang on one more week. Labor Day weekend (Sept 4-5) is when most of the preseason Top 10 actually takes the field: Ohio State (#1) hosts Ball State, Oregon (#2) hosts Boise State, Georgia (#3) hosts Tennessee State, Texas (#5) hosts Texas State, Texas A&M (#8) hosts Missouri State, and Miami (#7) travels to Stanford. This weekend is the appetizer - next weekend is when the ranked teams show up.

NFL: one preseason weekend left

The NFL isn't done yet - the final preseason weekend runs Aug 27-29, mostly backups and roster-bubble guys getting their last look before cuts. See the blog for last weekend's results and the closing slate. After that, it's cutdown day, then the real schedule.

Build your week

Add your teams on My Season and this weekend's slate - college openers included - gets filtered down to just the games you care about, in order, in your own timezone.