LUBBOCK, Texas – After dodging tortillas raining from the stands, water bottles heaved in anger and a feisty upset bid, before the final snap of Colorado’s 41-27 victory against Texas Tech, it got weird. A half-eaten, cold slice of pepperoni pizza hurled from the crowd drilled Heisman Trophy candidate Travis Hunter where he took his defensive stance at the 12-yard line.

Hunter did not flinch, because these Buffs do not blink at the hate, they thrive on it.

“We’re hated everywhere we go,” CU safety Cam’Ron Silmon-Craig said. “If we walk in the stadium and they don’t hate us, we don’t feel right.”

Colorado is college football’s greatest traveling circus. Ain’t hard to find? That’s an understatement. Every time that America turns on the television, the Buffs are there. Coach Deion Sanders is more ubiquitous on social media than Elon Musk.

But hated? Nah. Not really. CU is rapidly becoming America’s team.

If these Buffaloes are villains, they’re the most huggable bad guys this side of Felonious Gru from “Despicable Me.”

After rallying the Buffs from a 13-0 deficit in the first quarter by throwing for 291 yards and three touchdowns, CU quarterback Shedeur Sanders worked the crowd like he was running for governor of Texas … or maybe auditioning to be the next QB of the Dallas Cowboys.

When the final seconds of the fourth quarter had ticked away, Sanders lingered and mingled at Jones AT&T Stadium, posing for selfies and offering high fives by the dozen, wishing a happy 40th birthday to an adoring fan and borrowing a saxophone from a delighted member of the Texas Tech band to rock the good times with his peeps.

And did I see Sanders autograph one of those tortillas, which were flung like frisbees by the crowd throughout the game until there seemed to be enough material on the stadium floor to wrap an enchilada for all 60,229 fans in attendance?

“Yeah, I had to sign one. They kept throwing ‘em at me, so I had to ,” Sanders confirmed to me.

Yes, Colorado came out of the dressing room painfully slow, gaining only 26 yards and one first down against the touchdown and two field goals posted by the Red Raiders in the opening quarter.

But what? These Buffs worry? Never.

“It was never a stress. It was never a sweat. It was never a doubt,” Sanders said.

And by the time CU’s first-round prospect in the the NFL draft threw a screen pass to Hunter and he took it 24 yards to the house for a touchdown that put Colorado in firm control at 31-20 late in the third quarter, the Texas Tech students behind the Buffs’ bench took out their frustration by switching from tortillas to water bottles as ammunition aimed at the visitors.

That’s when Coach Prime decided enough was enough and loudly issued a formal complaint for officials to regain control of the circus.

“Thank God a tortilla is soft, not hard,” he said. “But when they start throwing water bottles and other objects, that’s when you’ve got to alarm the officials and say: ‘OK now, tortillas are one thing but water bottles are another thing. That’s getting a little crazy.”

Deion Sanders raised his sons to be gentlemen. Ever a friend to Mother Nature and always polite as a visitor to somebody’s house, CU safety Shilo Sanders picked up one of the plastic water bottles and gently tossed it back into the stands to be recycled.

Know what? All the debris that collected at the feet of the Buffs was actually a sign of grudging respect, as Prime knows all too well. Thirty years ago, when he was patrolling the secondary in the NFL and roaming the outfield in the major leagues as a two-sport superstar, Neon Deion learned to duck rather than retaliate and that victory was the best revenge.

“They’ve thrown everything but my Mom at me,” Sanders recalled.

From the moment Coach Prime stepped on the CU campus in December 2022, he has turned the art of bringing a Buffs moribund football program back from the dead into must-see TV.

But now? Colorado is more than America’s most outrageous reality show this side of “MILF Manor.”

These Buffs can play. They’ve got a 7-2 record and are on the rise in the national rankings. Don’t tell any of their haters, but after Kansas upset Iowa State as CU cranked up the circus deep in the heart of Texas, these guys from Boulder now control their own destiny and have a clear path to the Big 12 Conference championship game.

With three very winnable games against Utah, Kansas and Oklahoma State remaining on their regular-season schedule, Colorado even has a realistic shot at earning one of the 12 berths in the college football playoff.

“We don’t change,” Coach Prime insisted, “with the stakes.”

The Buffs are all-in and on a roll. Hate ‘em if you must. But don’t bet against ‘em.