The dream of playing for a Big 12 title is still alive for the Colorado Buffaloes, but it isn’t as attainable as it was before a trip to Kansas City, Mo., this past weekend.

CU let a golden opportunity slip through its fingers with a 37-21 loss to Kansas on Saturday, but the Buffs are still in contention for a spot in the Big 12 title game. In fact, nine of the 16 teams in the conference are in contention for the two title game spots heading into the final week of the regular season.

For CU (8-3, 6-2 Big 12), which fell seven spots to No. 23 in the latest Associated Press Top 25 on Sunday, it all starts with trying to beat last-place Oklahoma State (3-8, 0-8) at Folsom Field on Friday (10 a.m., ABC).

The Big 12 announced an update on tiebreaker scenarios on Sunday. Four teams — CU, Arizona State, BYU and Iowa State — are tied for first place with 6-2 conference records. Five other teams are a game back at 5-3, which creates a potentially chaotic situation this weekend. There is actually a possibility for an eight-team tie for first place.

For CU, it comes down to two scenarios to punch a ticket to Arlington, Texas:

1) Beat OSU and hope two of other three teams tied for first (ASU, BYU and Iowa State) lose. That would create a two-way tie for first between CU and another team and those two would go to the title game.

Or …

2) Beat OSU, hope BYU is upset by Houston and hope Texas Tech beats West Virginia. That would create a three-way tie for first between CU, ASU and Iowa State. CU would win that tie-breaker based on its victory against the next-highest placed common opponent: Texas Tech. CU beat Tech, while ASU and ISU both lost to the Red Raiders.

The only thing quarterback Shedeur Sanders is worried about is the first part of the equation: Beating OSU.

“I don’t even know how that works (with the scenarios),” he said. “I just know we lost tonight’s game. So that’s something we just gotta watch. We just gotta improve overall and see what went wrong. Where on offense we could’ve had our defense’s back more, and that’s it.”

The path to the title game isn’t easy, but that’s the price of struggling against Kansas. The Buffs could have simplified things with a win on Saturday but didn’t look anything like the team that brought a four-game winning streak into Arrowhead Stadium.

“That’s practice. That’s a tremendous thought process, which I will have from right now all the way until we land, and probably all day tomorrow, because it’s hard for me to flush things,” CU head coach Deion Sanders said of handling his team coming up short of the program standard. “I carry them because I’m a perfectionist. I try to see what is the problem and then administer to the problem and hopefully provoke change within the problem. (The game against KU) is not who we are, truly not who we are, especially defensively.”

Saturday was, by far, CU’s worst performance since a Week 2 loss at Nebraska, when it fell behind 28-0 and lost 28-10. The Buffs rallied in the second half, and then responded to that convincing defeat with three consecutive wins.

Coach Prime believes in his team to bounce back from this one, too, regardless of what needs to happen around the conference.

“I pray so. I’m always confident; I’m never unconfident,” he said. “I know what we have in that locker room. I trust those young men to do what they need to do to recover. It’s a terrible feeling. You gotta understand, I just saw their faces. It’s a terrible feeling. It’s a terrible sentiment. It’s a terrible mood. They’re not happy with themselves.

“Now, they’ve got to go read about it and hear about it and think about it, but sometimes it’s the best thing to happen to people. Like after the Nebraska thing, I think that was a blessing in disguise to us, truly.”

Perhaps this will be one, too, but that’s up to players and staff to make it happen.

“Same formula as it is every week,” Shedeur said. “Go into the week refreshed and understand what we did wrong and not really let it happen again. (Kansas) did a great job running the football. Their team did a good job defending and stopping our run. So we just gotta, I would say, see what went wrong and fix it so next week it won’t happen also.”