As Oregon debuted at No. 8 in the first College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday, coach Dan Lanning has of course directed his team to focus on themselves and what they can control, like he has all season.

That means preparing for a road trip to Colorado, which has been far and away the Pac-12's worst team this season.

The Ducks (7-1, 5-0 Pac-12) are 31.5-point favorites over the beleaguered Buffaloes (1-7, 1-4), and so as much as anything this game will become about cleaning up the loose ends and further fine-tuning for Oregon as it heads into the stretch run.

That said, it's not as if the week is devoid of storylines -- Colorado's top cornerback Christian Gonzalez, of course, transferred from Colorado in the offseason.

He and Lanning discussed that element of the road trip, while Lanning shared his thoughts on the matchup with the Buffs and more.

We break it all down with our five takeaways from the post-practice interviews so far this week ...

Colorado was fleeced of its top players in the transfer portal last year, with cornerbacks Christian Gonzalez (Oregon) and Mekhi Blackmon (USC), star running back Jarek Broussard (Michigan State) and leading receiver Brenden Rice (USC) among the talent departing the program.

The Ducks have certainly benefitted greatly from the arrival of Gonzalez, who has become the team's top cornerback with 7 pass breakups, an interception and 32 total tackles. He's played the most snaps of any Oregon defensive player (478) while allowing 28 receptions on 47 targets (59.6 percent) for 311 yards and 2 TDs over eight games, per PFF.

Gonzalez returns to Boulder, Colo., this weekend with a much higher national profile, having helped his NFL draft stock as a third-year draft-eligible player (who could also certainly choose to return to the Ducks to continue his development).

It's a very specific individual storyline, but it's probably the most compelling we can come up with for this game.

Lanning was asked how he hoped Gonzalez would handle that element of the week, and he started his response with a clarification.

"It's not how I hope, it's how I know," Lanning said. "I love Christian being part of our team. You don't know when you bring a guy in that's been somewhere else what they're going to be like, and we've been really fortunate to have been able to bring great players in that have been at other organizations, but what makes Christian special is he has phenomenal character. I know he wants to go perform well at a high level. To think that he doesn't acknowledge where he's going to play this week, I'm sure he's aware -- a heightened awareness of that -- but that doesn't change the way he prepares, that doesn't change the way he works during the week."

Gonzalez downplayed every question asked to him this week about heading back to Colorado.

"It's a normal week. Just preparing like it's every other game, you know. Obviously, I'm going back to where I came from, but it's just the same thing I've done week in, week out. I'm not looking at it any different," he said Tuesday after practice. "Just getting film study, getting what we've got to do as a team done and just excited to go play another opponent. ...

"It's just football. It's just going and doing what I do week in, week out like I've done since I Was a little kid."

Fellow Oregon DB Trikweze Bridges said that he has indeed seen Gonzalez operate the same as usual this week.

"I know he's excited for it, but it's nothing but another game. That's kind of where his head's at," Bridges said. "But I still pick at him, like 'Hey, yu ready to go down there?' But he's in the right mind with it."