USC Trojans head football coach Lincoln Riley faced the largest practice scrum of the season Tuesday at Howard Jones Field. The reason behind the additional media on a Tuesday afternoon?
Two words. Colorado Week. Or, Coach Prime. Or, Caleb Williams vs. Shedeur Sanders. Well, I guess that last one is technically 3 words, but you get the point.
Coach Prime and the Buffaloes have gotten plenty of media coverage since he arrived in Boulder, but once Colorado shocked the world and beat TCU on the road, the coverage and attention exploded. Ever since that game, this matchup between SC and Colorado has been circled as a highly anticipated one.
In the media scrum on that Tuesday, Coach Riley was asked about Coach Prime and the program he is building in Boulder. Riley didn’t take the bait like many coaches before him. There will be no bulletin board material this week, no hype videos, no viral TikTok speeches, and no insatiable bad blood. It’s all respect heading into this battle.
Coach Riley said that he hasn’t ever met Coach Prime, but he has a ton of respect for him and what he is building out in the Rocky Mountains. He said, and I am paraphrasing, that he respects and appreciates that Sanders coaches and leads true to himself. People can see right through someone being fake, and Sanders has built that program based on what he wants and how he wants to do it.
This game is going to have plenty of drama and up-and-down swings throughout, but it looks as if none of that drama will be started off the field prior to kickoff. We will just have to wait for the fireworks to be lit at Folsom Field on Saturday!