Caleb Williams on national hype surrounding Deion Sanders, Colorado: 'It's been good for them'

The most popular story in college football — and maybe in all of sports before Taylor Swift attended Travis Kelce’s game last week — has been Deion Sanders and Colorado. The Buffaloes entered last week’s game against Oregon with a 3-0 record before losing 42-6 in Eugene, but still remain the hottest topic in the game.

This week, they’ll face their biggest test yet. USC heads to Boulder for a battle of two of the Pac-12’s most explosive offenses. Led by Caleb Williams, the Trojans will once again test the Colorado defense, just as Bo Nix and Oregon did last week.

Williams knows the Buffs have been a national talking point, but he doesn’t see that as a bad thing at all. In fact, he’s happy for Colorado fans to be excited about the program and get more eyes on the games.

“It’s been good for them,” Williams said Wednesday. “Something that Colorado’s needed and haven’t had in a while. Deion and his son, Travis and all those other players have done a good job making that side of the world and that stadium and all of that very exciting.

“It’ll be a good game, and really excited to get out there and go vs. the defense, our defense go vs. their offense and to have the crowd roaring at us.”

All eyes will be on the offenses, which are among the best in the country. USC leads the nation with 55 points per game and is third in the FBS with 569 yards of total offense per game. Colorado, meanwhile, averages 32.5 points — even with last week’s six-point showing — along with 409 yards of offense per contest.

But the Buffaloes could be coming in as a motivated group after last week’s trouncing at Oregon. That’s something Lincoln Riley pointed out, especially considering USC just faced an Arizona State team that was coming off back-to-back losses to Oklahoma State and Fresno State. The Sun Devils kept things close at first before the Trojans pulled away.

Riley knows Colorado is going to want to bounce back, which is why he said USC is prepared to deal with a team coming off a tough loss.

“Very similar to what we just walked into right? Again, everybody wants to write the book week after week and a lot of things change week to week,” Riley said. “Whether they won by a lot, lost by a lot, or anything in between, we’re gonna see a good football team at their home and those are always a challenge.”