The first separation Saturday of the college football season is upon us, as a divide between contenders and pretenders will begin to form. High-profile in-league and nonconference games dot the day, which will culminate with a blockbuster evening slate for the SEC.

In the early window, No. 12 Clemson is traveling to Georgia Tech for a big ACC battle. At the same time, No. 19 Alabama will host Wisconsin as the Crimson Tide enter a must-win spot against a Big Ten opponent. The afternoon slate is highlighted by a showdown between No. 6 Georgia and No. 15 Tennessee and an in-state battle between No. 5 Miami and No. 18 South Florida.

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Among the evening headliners is a showdown between No. 3 LSU and Florida in a matchup that often produces drama. But the headliner of the evening slate may be No. 8 Notre Dame’s showdown with No. 16 Texas A&M. The Fighting Irish were off in Week 2 following a Week 1 loss at Miami and can ill-afford an 0-2 start on their College Football Playoff quest. 

On the flip side, if the Aggies can march into South Bend and come away with a marquee victory, it would send the A&M hype machine into overdrive. By night’s end, we’ll have a clearer picture of what the national hierarchy looks like.

All times Eastern 

Noon | ESPN fubo (Try for free) This pick is contingent upon King suiting up for Georgia Tech, which seems to be the case as of now. Philo’s a capable backup, but Georgia Tech is going to need King’s edge if it wants to pull off an upset. So far, regardless of who’s playing quarterback, the Yellow Jackets have looked like the better team. They beat Colorado on the road and handled business against an obviously overmatched Gardner-Webb team. Clemson lost at home to LSU and then struggled at home against what should have been an obviously overmatched Troy team. Georgia Tech may not have enough gas to fully pull off the upset, but it will keep it within a field goal. Pick: Georgia Tech +3.5 (-110) — Will Backus 

Noon | ABC Fubo (Try for free) Wisconsin’s offense has not looked great in either of its first two games but managed to hit a few big plays in the passing game last week against Middle Tennessee. For some reason I don’t think the Middle Tennessee team that lost to Austin Peay is in the same weight class as Alabama, so it’s hard for me to imagine the Badgers having a lot of fun on offense here unless Alabama turns the ball over frequently. Pick: Alabama -20.5 — Tom Fornelli

USC at Purdue

3:30 p.m. | CBS, CBSSports.com, CBS Sports App, Paramount+ Premium Purdue pulling off the outright upset would be one of the biggest surprises of Week 3, but the rebuilt Boilermakers could have enough to keep this Big Ten opener to a respectable margin. Their path is clear: shorten the game and limit USC’s possessions. Purdue ranks 23rd nationally in called run play percentage (57.0%), while USC’s defense has struggled against the run, sitting tied for 80th in success rate (60.8%). If Purdue controls the tempo on the ground, it can hang around longer than expected. Pick: Purdue +20.5 — Cody Nagel

3:30 p.m. | ABC Fubo (Try for free) Georgia has been inconsistent on offense, but the Bulldogs are demolishing their opponents on defense. Kirby Smart has historically done a solid job locking down Josh Heupel’s offense. Vols quarterback Joey Aguilar will have some moments, but will falter during his first appearance on the big stage. Georgia will pull away at the end, but the under also could be a smart play. Pick: Georgia -3.5 — Shehan Jeyarajah

4:30 p.m. | CW Fubo (Try for free) USF has done great work to set itself up for a College Football Playoff run should the Bulls be able to win the American, but that giant-killer mentality will be put to the test against a Miami team that is an upgrade on both lines of scrimmage. As long as Miami can do a better job of applying pass rush to Byrum Brown and limit the explosive plays that powered each of the last two USF wins, the Hurricanes should be able to defend home turf and win handily. Pick: Miami -17.5 — Chip Patterson

No. 3 LSU vs. Florida 

7:30 p.m. | ABC Fubo (Try for free) Florida is limping in after a loss to South Florida, but the defeat was about poor game management, lapses in discipline and substandard execution. The Gators have plenty of talent, and it’s way too soon to put them on quit watch. LSU’s offense is still finding its way and has yet to illustrate the explosive gear that will likely be required to pull away in SEC games. LSU should win, but Florida’s defense can keep it close. Pick: Florida +7.5 — David Cobb

7:30 p.m. | NBC Fubo (Try for free) It’s been 11 years since Texas A&M defeated a ranked team on the road. Avenging a 10-point loss at home to Notre Dame last season with a win Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium sure would be a nice break from the trend. Marcel Reed provides the Aggies’ offense a different dynamic that the Irish did not have to contend against last season, and for as much as Marcel Reed wants to be known for his passing, the key for him is sparking the rushing attack, which means he needs to tuck the ball and run for hard yards. Notre Dame has the better rushing attack with Jeremiyah Love and has a quarterback, CJ Carr, who proved himself a capable runner when needed. The feeling here is that the Irish run the ball more than the 28 times for 93 yards they had against Miami. Pick: Notre Dame Money line -258 — Brandon Marcello

SportsLine’s proven computer model has simulated every Week 3 college football game 10,000 times. Visit SportsLine now to see all the picks, all from the model that is 31-19 since the beginning of last season on top-rated money-line and over/under picks. 

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday he believes the Russia-Ukraine war would end if all NATO countries stopped buying oil from Russia and placed tariffs on China of 50% to 100% for its purchases of Russian petroleum.

Trump posted on his social media site that NATO’S commitment to winning the war “has been far less than 100%” and the purchase of Russian oil by some members of the alliance is “shocking.” As if speaking with NATO members, he said: “It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia.”

Since 2023, NATO member Turkey has been the third largest buyer of Russian oil, after China and India. according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Other members of the 32-state alliance involved in purchasing Russian oil include Hungary and Slovakia.

Trump’s post arrives after the recent flight of multiple Russian drones into Poland, an escalatory move by Russia as it was entering the airspace of NATO ally. Poland shot down the drones, yet Trump played down the severity of the incident and Russia’s motives by saying it “could have been a mistake.”

While Trump as a candidate promised to end the war quickly, he has yet to hit the pressure points needed to end the violence and has at times been seen as reluctant to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin. Congress is currently trying to get the U.S. president to back a bill toughening sanctions, after Trump last month hosted Putin in Alaska for talks that failed to deliver on progress toward peace.

Trump in his post said that a NATO ban on Russian oil plus tariffs on China would “also be of great help in ENDING this deadly, but RIDICULOUS, WAR.”

The president said that NATO members should put the 50% to 100% tariffs on China and withdraw them if the war that launched with Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine ends.

“China has a strong control, and even grip, over Russia,” he posted, and powerful tariffs “will break that grip.”

The U.S. president has already placed a 25% import tax on goods from India for its buying of Russian energy products.

In his post, Trump said responsibility for the war fell on his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He did not include in that list Putin, who launched the invasion.

Trump’s post builds on a call Friday with finance ministers in the Group of Seven, a forum of industrialized democracies. During the call, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called on their counterparts to have a “unified front” to cut off “the revenues funding Putin’s war machine,” according to Greer’s office.

In February, Luna donated blood at her high school in Miami, with the goal of helping save others.

“She was very proud to come home and say, ‘I gave blood today,’” her mother, Valerie, said. (The Guardian is not using the mother or daughter’s full names to protect their privacy.)

It turned out, she was not able to save someone else’s life but potentially prevented herself from having serious health issues.

A couple months later, she received a letter from the blood donation company informing her that she could not give blood. She had tested positive for Chagas disease, which is caused by a parasite spread by triatomine bugs, otherwise known as kissing bugs.

Neither Luna nor Valerie had heard about the disease, which is most common in rural parts of Mexico and Central and South America, where their family had traveled.

“If you get a letter that tells you, you have blood cancer, you know what it is. But when you receive a letter and you hear, ‘Oh, your daughter has Chagas,’ … you’re like, oh, what is this?” said Valerie.

Dr Norman Beatty, who has studied the kissing bugs, said that like Valerie and Luna, most people in the US have not heard of Chagas, even though it is not just present south of the border but within the country.

Beatty, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine, is part of a group of scientists that authored a new report arguing that the United States should treat Chagas as an endemic disease, meaning that there is a constant or usual prevalence of a disease or infectious agent in a population within a geographic area.

They hope to increase public awareness of Chagas, which while rare, can cause serious health problems.

“My hope is that with more awareness of Chagas, we can build a better infrastructure around helping others understand whether or not they are at risk of this disease” and cause people to think about it similarly to other vector-borne illnesses, like from mosquitoes and ticks, said Beatty. “We need to add kissing bugs to this list.”

Bugs spread the parasite through their droppings, which can infect humans if they enter the body through a cut or via the eyes or mouth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It can cause symptoms such as fever, fatigue and eyelid swelling in the weeks or months after infection.

Some people, like Luna, do not develop any symptoms – at least initially – but about 20 to 30% of people infected can develop chronic issues later in life such as an enlarged heart and heart failure, or an enlarged esophagus or colon, leading to trouble eating or going to the bathroom.

About 8 million people, including 280,000 in the United States, have the disease, according to the CDC.

It is not a recent arrival to the US. The 1,200-year-old remains of a man buried in south Texas revealed that he had Chagas and an abnormally-enlarged colon, according to a report in the Gastroenterology journal.

More recently, human development in new areas has brought us “closer to the kissing bugs’ natural environment”, Beatty said.

People in at least eight states have been infected with Chagas from local bugs, according to the new report, which was published in the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal.

But the fact that it has not been declared endemic to the United States has led to “low awareness and underreporting”, the report states.

A 2010 survey conducted of some American Medical Association providers found that 19% of infectious disease doctors had never heard of Chagas and 27% said they were “not at all confident,” in their knowledge of the disease being up to date.

“If you ask physicians about Chagas, they would think that it is either something transmitted by ticks … or they would say that’s something that doesn’t exist in the US,” said Dr Bernardo Moreno Peniche, a physician and anthropologist who was one of the authors of the report with Beatty.

But Beatty sees people with Chagas every week at a clinic in Florida dedicated to travel medicine and tropical diseases. (Those patients were infected with Chagas in Latin America.)

Beatty said there is a misconception that tests for Chagas are not reliable or available in the United States.

“We have the infrastructure to start screening people who have had exposure to these bugs and who may be in a region where we had known transmission, so we should be thinking about this as kind of routine care,” Beatty said.

After Valerie received the letter about Luna’s infection, she contacted her pediatrician who quickly responded and told them to see an infectious disease doctor.

That physician told them it was likely a “false positive” and ordered additional tests before eventually starting treatment, Valerie said.

Frustrated by the medical care, Valerie sought out a new physician and found Beatty, who prescribed a different anti-parasitic therapy.

Even among people like Luna who are not experiencing any symptoms, such treatment is often recommended, Beatty said.

The goal is to “detect early and treat early to avoid the chronic, often permanent damage that can occur”, Beatty explained.

The treatment took two months, during which Luna experienced side effects like hives and severe swelling in her hands and feet, she said.

While she is finished with the treatment, there is no definitive test to determine whether such patients will develop chronic Chagas symptoms, but it’s less likely, Beatty said.

“I hope the CDC takes it seriously,” Valerie said, “and that we can move forward and have good awareness, so that people want to be tested and get tested and get the treatment they need.”