BOULDER — USC Trojans star Caleb Williams walked into Folsom Field on Saturday as the Heisman Trophy winner and left the stadium as the second-best quarterback in college football.
Shedeur Sanders brought the CU Buffs back from the brink and dared the mighty Trojans to blink in a 48-41 thriller that USC was lucky to survive unbeaten.
As a quarterback, there is more than a little Tom Brady, with a sassy dash of Joe Montana, to be seen in Sanders, capable of doing even more amazing football magic than Williams, the presumed top pick in the next NFL draft.
Maybe the 30 pro scouts in attendance at the game would argue otherwise.
But they would be wrong.
When building an NFL team for the future, you can take Williams with the No. 1 pick. My quarterback is Sanders.
Doubt my evaluation as crazy, over-the-top optimism?
Well, as Deion Sanders, coach of the Buffs and father of their quarterback, has been known to tell naysayers: “Look in the mirror and slap whatever you see.”
On Fox’s Big Noon stage, Williams was awesome, throwing for 403 yards and six touchdowns. But Sanders stole the show.
“I feel like my stage is my stage,” said Sanders when I asked him if he relished sharing the spotlight with Williams.
“He’s a great player, but it’s not all on his stage, or anything like that. … I’m comfortable. I’m good with everything I’m doing. It’s not really a stage, it’s a big game and that’s it. Every game, there are millions of viewers. The stage is for you all to set; it’s for us to go out there and play against human beings.”
Ball don’t lie. Game knows game.
After Sanders wiped out nearly all of a 34-7 first-half deficit and the eighth-ranked Trojans escaped with a one-touchdown victory, USC players sought out CU’s quarterback on the field, offering hugs and respect.
When USC defensive lineman Anthony Lucas was done paying tribute to Shedeur, I briefly interrupted his walk to the visitors locker room by saying: “He’s a pretty good quarterback, don’t you think?
“Well, duh,” replied Lucas, giving the best props another athlete can extend to a fellow competitor in the jargon of 2023. “That’s him.”
Williams throws darts, with almost uncanny bulls-eye accuracy, even when flushed from the pocket. Sanders, however, wields a lightsaber with a force that could make Luke Skywalker envious.
Not only did Sanders throw for 371 yards, but he also led the Buffs with 76 yards on the ground. And all you really need to know about his magic was on full display during a 9-yard touchdown pass to Omarion Miller in the fourth quarter.
Under relentless pressure from USC rushers, Sanders drifted calmly to his right, spotted his freshman teammate in the end zone and delivered a strike from an angle so bad through a window so tight that few quarterbacks this side of Patrick Mahomes could even think about attempting it.
“His nickname on my phone, and most of you know this, is: ‘Grown.’ G-R-O-W-N,” said Coach Prime, looking at the CU quarterback through the eyes of a Hall of Famer rather than as a proud father.
Let’s hope Broncos general manager George Paton, among those scouting this contest, took copious notes.
Yes, I’ve advocated Denver tanking for Williams. But if $10 million in name, image and likeness riches aren’t enough dough to bring Sanders back to Boulder for another season, here’s hoping he takes the thunder road down the highway to Empower Field and the Broncos huddle.
While there’s no arguing with the scoreboard, the Buffs didn’t lose to USC. The best quarterback in college football merely ran out of time.
“If we would have got that ball last, we were going to go down and score. We knew that … His teammates knew that. And that is just what he brings to the table,” Coach Prime said.
Heisman voters are allowed three names on their ballot. While acknowledging there remains a lot of football to be played, my only question is: Who gets the last slot not filled by Sanders or Williams?
When last seen on Folsom Field together, the two best quarterbacks in college football greeted each other as rivals grateful for being pushed to the max.
“Keep ballin’,” Williams told Sanders.
Tom Brady wouldn’t be the GOAT without Peyton Manning.
On the final Saturday of September 2023, Sanders and Williams brought out the best in each other.
Trust me. It won’t be the last time.
While USC is headed off to the Big Ten, and the Buffs are bound for the Big 12, a great quarterback rivalry has been born.
We were all witnesses at Folsom Field to the future of the NFL.
Fifteen years down the road, the pages of pro football history will thrill us with stories about Williams and Sanders.
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