Deion Sanders and the Colorado Buffaloes have captured the imagination of college football fans, and there was no better example of that fact than the television ratings in Week 4.
There has been no bigger topic to start the college football season than the shocking success of Hall-of-Famer Deion Sanders and the Colorado football program. In year one as the head coach, “Primetime” has injected unbelievable life into the program after a 3-0 start and has reenergized the brand after relative dormancy for the last decade.
Related: Week 5 college football rankings – Ohio State and Alabama soar, Colorado and Ole Miss plummet
That is why there was so much interest in their Week 4 clash with perennial powerhouse Oregon. For the team’s supporters and detractors, it was an elite-level litmus test to see if Colorado would be a legitimate force in the top-25 college football rankings this year. Unfortunately for the NFL legend, his team took a drubbing from the Ducks by the score of 42-6.
Deion Sanders has made Colorado’s brand bigger than Alabama and Penn State in 2023
While the Buffs did not win on the field last week, they certainly were victorious in a major way when it came to interest from football fans around the country. On Tuesday, Action Network college football insider Brett McMurphy revealed the ratings for the various games in Week 4, and Colorado vs. Oregon led the way with an outstanding 10.03 million average viewers for the broadcast on ABC.
What makes the numbers special, is it was actually better than a highly anticipated clash between legendary schools Notre Dame and Ohio State (9.98 million) in a game between two top-10, with huge fan bases, and serious national championship aspirations. Yet that was not where the ratings dominance ended.
Deion Sanders’ team facing Oregon also did better than a matchup of top 15 teams when Alabama faced Ole Miss (4.61 million), and top 25 squads Iowa vs. Penn State (2.75 million).
Oregon certainly deserves credit for its role in the impressive numbers from last week, but for Sanders to make an irrelevant school in recent years be a part of games that gain double or triple the numbers of big games featuring Alabama and Penn State is one of the more shocking turn arounds for a program that has been seen in quite some time.