Before the big game, Colorado State's mascot died

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - A substitute had to be sent in for Colorado State University's mascot sheep on Saturday after the 24th mascot died shortly before the team's big day.

Colorado State University President Tony Frank says CAM the Ram died Saturday, the same day as the Rocky Mountain Showdown with the CU Buffaloes.

The Fort Collins Coloradoan reports CAM's successor, No. 25, took the field for the football game.

The Rambouillet sheep was 6 years old. CSU officials don't know how he died.

CAM was a regular at campus events. At Hughes Stadium, he would run from one side of the end zone to the other in celebration of a Rams' touchdown.

He lived with a Fort Collins family on a farm that also has horses, chickens and other animals.