BOULDER – Louis Vuitton came back to bite Coach Prime in the rump.

After making a clutch play to beat the Buffs, proud Colorado alum and current Arizona receiver Montana Lemonious-Craig pranced to the middle of Folsom Field and did a little dance on the CU logo in celebration of the Wildcats’ 34-31 victory.

“They like to make a movie with their games …  Well, we gave them a movie. We gave them a helluva ending,” Lemonious-Craig told me Saturday.

This moment of sweet redemption was personal for Lemonious-Craig, who gave his heart and soul to the Buffs for three seasons before transferring to Arizona.

“I really needed this one,” he said. “I needed this one bad.”

After new coach Deion Sanders unpacked his Louis luggage in Boulder, he urged players from a wretched 1-11 team to jump in the transfer portal and brashly declared “We comin’!” The team’s top receiver from 2022 responded by bolting the program, but not before Lemonious-Craig put on a show at the CU spring game, catching a 98-yard touchdown pass from ballyhooed quarterback Shedeur Sanders.

So why did Lemonious-Craig, clearly talented enough to play for Coach Prime, leave the Buffs?

“I’m not a big flash kind of guy,” he said softly, as we spoke outside the Arizona locker room.

“It was tough to leave, because of the history I have here (in Boulder). I love Colorado. This was the place where I got an opportunity to play collegiate football. Of course, it was tough to leave. But I thought it was the right decision for me to move on, with the direction Sanders was going with the CU program. I just made the decision, rolled the dice and went on with my life.”

The 23rd-ranked Wildcats did not take their first lead in a hotly contested conference showdown until the final seconds of the fourth quarter expired. Tyler Loop kicked a 24-yard field goal after Arizona hogged the ball for the final 4 minutes, 57 seconds of the game, driving 67 yards in 11 plays.

But the dagger in the heart of Colorado’s rapidly fading dreams of a bowl bid was a five-yard pass on third down from Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita to Lemonious-Craig, who was fell only 36 inches shy of the goal line. Although he desperately wanted to score, being stopped just short of a touchdown after picking up a first down allowed the Wildcats to run out the final 64 seconds, leaving the Buffs zero time for a comeback.

“I gave Montana a game ball for going down at the one,” Arizona coach Jedd Fisch said with a sly grin forming in the corner of his mouth. “I thought that was great.”

What was so funny? Truth be known, Lemonious-Craig not only rued being denied a touchdown, he believed that Buffs safety Shilo Sanders failed to make the tackle before the football crossed the goal line.

“I should’ve scored. I wish they would’ve reviewed that play,” Lemonious-Craig said. “I wanted that touchdown bad. But as long as we won at the end of the day, I don’t care.”

If you live by the transfer portal, sometimes you die by the transfer portal.

We can all stand up and cheer for Neon Deion and his ability to not only put Colorado back on the college football map but often make Boulder the center of the sport’s universe. But the unsavory side of blowing up the Buffs and re-shaping it in Prime’s image has been the generally accepted notion that the student-athletes run out of the program got what they deserved for being lousy at football.

“He challenged us. (Sanders) gave us a big challenge to show him what you got if you wanted to stick around,” Lemonious-Craig said. “I showed him what I got and decided I didn’t want to stick around.”

After this game, the affection former CU teammates demonstrated for Lemonious-Craig, who has caught 20 passes and scored two touchdowns for the bowl-bound Wildcats, was a reminder football can still be a brotherhood bigger than the cold-blooded business that has wrecked the Pac-12.

“I’m a CU alum. Those are my brothers,” Lemonious-Craig said. “There might not be many of them still here because of the way Deion went about the program. But the guys that are still here and even some of the guys that came in, I built relationships with them. And that’s bigger than football. It’s way past all the X’s and O’s. It’s a brotherhood.”

Big Colorado linemen wrapped Lemonious-Craig in bro hugs so fierce they almost knocked him down in a big happy heap.

But when Shedeur Sanders, the high-profile Buffs quarterback and son of Prime, bounded across the field to pay his respect, Lemonious-Craig gave a heaping helping of playful grief to the new face of the CU program, whose $70,000 Swiss watch and $200,000 luxury car will have to serve as solace in defeat.

“Hey,” gleefully shouted Lemonious-Craig, smacking his shoulder pads against Sanders to drive home his point, “You got beat, brother!”

Sweet redemption can’t be bought. At any price.

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