It won’t be long until a modern wrinkle is inserted into scenes like the one that unfolded last week at Folsom Field.

It still was relatively early in the sold out Colorado football spring game when Montana Lemonious-Craig broke free along the sideline. New quarterback Shedeur Sanders delivered a strike and Lemonious-Craig did the rest, racing to the end zone for a 98-yard score that electrified the crowd of 47,277.

Hopefully Buffaloes fans took a good look and waved Lemonious-Craig goodbye.

One could almost picture a door representing the transfer portal — for you hoops followers, think of something along the line of the Curtain of Distraction used by the Arizona State student section — propped up at the back of the end zones in future spring games. After big moments, players can flex for the cameras, bid adieu to the fans, and announce their intent to transfer by stepping through the portal.

That’s essentially what Lemonious-Craig did, but he hardly was alone. It was a unique and unprecedented week for the CU Buffs, even by the standards set by new head coach Deion Sanders. Since the transfer portal opened on April 15, 42 now-former scholarship CU players have dived in. Twenty-nine of those, like Lemonious-Craig, have occurred since the spring game just one week ago. With Saturday marking the deadline to enter the portal, by the time this column transitions to print those numbers could very well increase.

In a new era in which the arrival of Sanders has unlocked new avenues of revenue streams — I mean, 47,277 for a spring exhibition? — jacking up the price of game programs in the fall might prove lucrative. Folks are going to need them to figure out just who the heck they’re rooting for out there on the field.

It was alarming in the expanse and speed in which the spring game roster was crumpled up and tossed into the dumpster, but love it or hate it, it’s exactly what Coach Prime said he was going to do from the moment he was hired on Dec. 2. Lemonious-Craig’s big play last week inspired this guy to write how it “showed there might yet be room for a few of the 2022 holdovers.” That thought had a shelf life of a few hours.

As of Saturday, only 12 of the 85 scholarship players from the woeful 1-11 2022 squad remained in the mix. Sanders is doing exactly as he promised, and it’s difficult to quibble going scorched-earth with one of the worst college football teams of last season. If ever a program needed to be razed and built anew, this was it.

That, of course, is no fault of the players who did their best to change that outcome last fall, and who persevered amid a horrendous situation that included the midseason firing of former coach Karl Dorrell.

Yet the idea that all 42 players who have hit the transfer portal the past two weeks couldn’t have helped the revamped Buffs is a stretch. Are Na’im Rodman and Jalen Sami really less viable options on the defensive line than guys from Fresno State, Old Dominion and Dartmouth? Only time will tell, but the only part of the equation that matters is that Sanders thinks so.

On the defensive line and elsewhere, the Buffs now have cards to play with. Reinforcements are on the way.

The lines on both sides will be bolstered, although landing a quality backup quarterback might prove problematic (Who is going to be willing to sign on to be the backup to the coach’s son, when any competition for the job will be an illusion?).

It’s easy to feel for now-former Buffs like offensive lineman Travis Gray, a local product cast into the portal despite being a legacy Buff whose father was part of the 1990 national championship team. But athletic director Rick George brought Sanders in to do exactly what he’s doing now — revamping the roster in hopes of raising the program from the dead.

This is how it happens. Certainly enjoy the wins if they start flowing in, Buffs fans. But don’t get attached to the players. In today’s game, few of them will be here long.