There’s a black hole on the Colorado sports calendar.

In our fine state, where Broncomania rages on, college football Saturdays have fallen.

And I’m not sure if the CU Buffaloes, Air Force Falcons or CSU Rams know how to get back up.

The shine on Coach Prime is fading to black, with television ratings for Buffs’ games on ESPN having dropped a whopping 67 percent since Deion Sanders boldly promised the college football world “We Comin’!” back in 2023.

Down the Front Range at the Air Force Academy, Troy Calhoun enters his 20th season on the sideline as the elder statesman of a dying Mountain West.

And up in Fort Collins, the Rams are delusional, trying to claim they’ve arrived by joining a newly reformed Pac-12 that’s a hollow shell of the onetime conference of champions.

A year ago, the cumulative football record of the Buffs, Zoomies and Rams was 9-27.

Go ahead, try to find another state in our great land that claims to love college football that’s in a sorrier state of disrepair than Colorado. I’ll wait.

While trying to rebound from last season’s 15th-place finish among 16 teams in the Big 12, the only national news Sanders has made in the run-up to this season was for no-notes, no-cellphones, no-fun-allowed restrictions at an “open” preseason practice that would’ve bordered on spy-vs-spy paranoia if not for being so ridiculously funny.

And the joke’s on Prime.

The country has lost the plot on the Buffaloes’ story because it’s gone stale.

Nobody’s listening to Sanders, much less stealing the plays of a team that ended last season on a five-game losing streak.

Prime, however, is still kinda a big deal in Atlanta, where his legendary NFL career began back in 1989. They remember him fondly down in Georgia. When the Broncos recently blasted the Falcons during a preseason game inside a half-empty dome, the locals lustily booed new quarterback Tua Tagovailoa from the jump, but many wore a throwback jersey adorned with the No. 21 and Sanders name.

Prime will be welcomed back to Atlanta as a favorite son when Colorado opens its season Sept. 3 against Georgia Tech.

Not to suggest it’s a must-win game for the Buffs, but lose in Hotlanta and Sanders might be a happier man if he skips the team flight back to Colorado.

Back in the day, Air Force was everything good about college football, with players so easy to stand up and cheer for, because they not only put team before the individual, but put country before self as well.

“The greatest jolt you can ever experience as a coach at the Air Force Academy, the best caffeine is to be around the cadets,” Calhoun declared during an interview at Mountain West football media day earlier this summer.

Those words still ring true.

But the thrill between Colorado Springs and AFA football is gone. Falcon Stadium used to be one of my favorite places in America to watch a game. Now the place feels empty and haunted by the way this program used to be, when Calhoun played quarterback for Fisher DeBerry a generation ago.

Calhoun has long done Air Force football proud. He’s a good man. He’s also in danger of leading the Falcons to three consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 2004-06, when DeBerry decided it was time to wave goodbye.

Since christening the folly that is Canvas Stadium back in 2017, touting it as evidence of a CSU football program that deserved a seat on the big boys’ table, the $220 million facility has been the white elephant in the room.

Build it and the offers to join a power conference will come. Isn’t that the fairy tale we were told?

Well, since moving home games to campus, CSU football has been just about the worst excuse for a good time in Fort Fun. The Rams’ record over the past nine seasons is 34-66. That’s the definition of futility.

This program hasn’t been in such bad shape since the late 1980s.

As you might recall, that’s when the Rams took a chance on an old ball coach named Earle Bruce.

Now, CSU is hoping 64-year-old Jim Mora, who once led the NFL team in Seattle, can rekindle Ram pride.

Back to the future.

Hey, it’s worth a shot.

What has Colorado State got to lose except another eight football games every year?