College football 2026 basics, 1 month out. Plus: You see the squirrel yet?

The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Apologies for the incoming reminder that summer days are waning. Today: 🏈 One month until CFB 💰 World Cup for sale 🐿️ Long live this squirrel Catching Up, Part 1: What you’ve missed in college footballAfter a 39-day World Cup, history’s longest, lots of sports fans surely looked up and noted … whoa, fútbol Americano starts soon.A month from today, in fact. College football’s Week 0 begins with Bill Belichick’s turbulent Tar Heels in Dublin, Ireland, against TCU, the first team to humble them last season.With that in mind — and all 32 NFL teams now at training camp, which we’ll get to tomorrow — let’s look ahead. I brought on the author of our c