Lincoln Riley has surprising comments about Deion Sanders, Colorado ahead of matchup

To the untrained eye, it may seem that the Colorado Buffaloes are heading into a woodchipper this weekend against No. 8 USC.

Deion Sanders' team started off hot and captured the attention of the college football world at 3-0. The Buffaloes ran into reality in their first matchup against a ranked opponent — Oregon beat the breaks off of them, 42-6 — and now the Buffs will play host to No. 8 USC and reigning Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Caleb Williams.

Colorado could be on the losing end of a snowball that started accumulating up in Eugene, but USC head coach Lincoln Riley isn't counting out Coach Prime and his team just yet. In fact, coming off a hard-fought 42-28 road win against Arizona State, Riley knows that a team backed into a corner can be very dangerous.

“Very similar to what we just walked into right?" Riley said on "Trojans Live" (h/t On3) while previewing Colorado as an opponent. "Again, everybody wants to write the book week after week and a lot of things change week to week. 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.”

While that is a healthy way to look at a big Pac-12 matchup, it is worth noting that Oregon did set out the blueprint for beating the Buffaloes. Shedeur Sanders is one heck of a quarterback, but especially with Travis Hunter out, the Buffaloes don't have a good enough defense or enough weapons on offense to get into a boat race. 

Especially if you can get pressure on Sanders defensively while maintaining a tempo on offense, Colorado has proved that it just may not be ready to hang around with the big dawgs in the Top 10.

Of course, anything can happen with Coach Prime on the sideline — so Riley is right to respect the Buffaloes — but there's a reason USC goes into this contest as a 21.5-point favorite.