“The (Colorado Buffaloes) losing streak is at five games, and the first season under Deion Sanders has hit rock bottom.’’

— TYLER KING, THE GAZETTE.

Fame can be fleeting, and the flame will grow fainter, then fade out.

Boulder’s Bad-News Buffs have lost for the seventh game in eight. More shocking news happened at the Air Force Academy as the Falcons came up eight yards and four points short and lost their third straight game. The Sad-News Bears in Greeley were beaten barely and end up 0-11. But the great news in Fort Collins was the Colorado State victory.

The Rams, recovering from a 1-4 start, now are the best of the four majors in Colorado.

Young Mr. Tyler King is an exceptional college football writer who has a degree from Penn State, so he understands schools that lose big games, but he was unequivocally mistaken about CU.

The Buffs will go even lower and sink to an unfathomable depth, down where the Mariana Hadal Snailfish dwell in the subterranean sea, Saturday in Salt Lake City against Utah. “What’s a Ute?’’ the judge in “Cousin Vinny’’ asked. What the Utes are is yet another outstanding Pac-12 team, ranked 22nd in the country, that CU must

play before this descending season comes to a merciful conclusion. The Utes will take no pity on Colorado in this Border Battle. They biffed the Buffs 63-21 last year.

CU and UU came to the Pac-12 together in 2011, and they will leave together to join the Big 12 next season, so the sort-of rivalry will continue annually. Utah has won the past six and 9 of 11. Neither snow nor an upset is in the forecast for Saturday. But plenty of points can be predicted. After the 56-14 embarrassment against Washington State, CU already has been shattered for 405 even if that total is dramatically down from the 544 points permitted in 2022. At least these Buffs have four times as many victories. But no winning season, no bowl, no solace.

But the CU fans were transformed into Buffies, and the team became college football’s version of Taylor Swift nationally.

The “Coach Prime Time Players’’ won their first three games, and America woke up early and stayed up late, and Colorado and Sanders & Sons were featured on every sports show; Deion was interviewed by “60 Minutes’’ and satirized on “Saturday Night Live’’, and the celebrities and dueling college football pre-game shows arrived in Boulder. The stadium was SRO for the first time since a Rolling Stones concert, and the economy in town and the donations to the program were blue sky high, and CU no longer is a program on the brink of extinction like buffaloes 150 years ago.

Must-see CU was ranked as high as 21, and quarterback Shedeur Sanders and double-trouble Travis Hunter were considered potential Heisman Trophy candidates. Deion Sanders appeared to be on every TV commercial, and his sweatshirts, signature sunglasses and the hotcakes he had for breakfast were selling like hotcakes.

Then, though, the Buffaloes began participation in the Pac-12 Conference for a final season.

All the excitement and exaltation expired as the Buffs became Beanie Babies in discouraging defeats to Oregon, USC, Stanford, UCLA, Oregon State, Arizona State and, at last, the worst Saturday night – 56-14 to Washington State – when the Buffs coaches and players just quit.

After a season of sacks – 52! – and two more injuries Shedeur, the Buffs’ soul and sole man, finally was forced to surrender. He set the school record of 3,230 passing yards with 27 touchdowns and only 3 interceptions. Without him, the Buffs had nothing left.

Northern Colorado did their best in leading Portland State, but was outscored 13-3 in the fourth quarter.

UNC fell to Washington State by 43, CU by 42 and CSU by 26.

The other two Colorado teams — the Falcons and the Rams — split Saturday with the two Nevada teams — the Rebels and the Wolf Pack. With the defeat to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Air Force is 9-3 (5-2 in the Mountain West) and probably won’t play a conference championship game at home. The Rams prevailed over Nevada 30-20 and could clinch a bowl slot in their finale at Hawaii on Saturday.

Write on, Tyler.