COACH PRIME IS DOGGED — IS JAY NORVELL PREPARED FOR A BOULDER RAMPAGE?

In a transformative season when Nick Saban is fading, the Colorado State coach took off on Deion Sanders’ hat and sunglasses, which might be enough for a furor in Boulder during a national TV game

     In a country ready for another riot, football included, Jay Norvell has no clue what he might have triggered. He’s 60, taking Colorado State down a state road to Boulder, and the man has chosen to wallop Coach Prime before a Saturday night game with loons who haven’t left Folsom Field in a week. Every time the Colorado Buffaloes have played for Deion Sanders, they’ve found a heavy reason to make it personal because he’s the one personalizing it, the devil be damned.

     Yet now, after playing only one NFL season while the regulars were striking in 1987, Norvell is holding a high flame to the hat and sunglasses worn by Sanders in public view. It’s his way of reconstructing a sport in its transfer-portal madness, which can win quick games but denigrates the education of young people. Norvell obviously is tired of the fuss and said so, as a new despiser. Does he realize during an in-state tussle televised on ESPN that he may have manufactured upheaval all evening? How many cops are in that town? Bring them all, thanks to what he said during his weekly radio show about Sanders.

     “I don’t care if they hear this in Boulder,” Norvell said. “I told them (ESPN) — I took my hat off, and I took my glasses off. I said, ‘When I talk to grown-ups, I take my hat and my glasses off. That’s what my mother taught me.’ ’’

     This would have been a precious time for Sanders, already the biggest name in college football in a season when Nick Saban is dying fast, to flash a grin and kick some more tail when he’s a 23-point favorite. Sure, right. Pulling out every vehemence and coup from his long career as a Hall of Fame shyster, he called his team together at practice and had his son, Deion Jr., post the taping online. The personal was a double-personal, and if you wear Colorado State colors to the contest, you might consider an excursion to Telluride.

     "I'm minding my own business watching some film, trying to get ready, trying to get out here and be the best coach that I could be, and I look up and I read some bull junk that they had said about us, once again," Sanders said. “Why would you want to talk about us when we don't talk about nobody? All we do is go out here, work our butts off and do our job on Saturday. But when they give us ammunition, they done messed around and made it (personal).

     “It was just gonna be a good game and they done messed around and made it personal. It was gonna be a great task — a battle of Colorado — but they done messed around and made it (personal).”

     He then was shown on a golf cart, saying, “Now he's messing with my mama.”

     For many coaches around the land, who don’t like the portal and how it turns the sport into excessive chaos, Norvell’s remarks were saccharine. Problem is, he must coach his team in the shadows of Sanders and his brilliant quarterback son, Shedeur, after losing 50-24 at home to Washington State. The Rams have no shot of winning unless the Buffaloes go bonkers, which is worth pondering. What happens to Norvell’s team — before, during and after — should be a considerable bother for many of us. He opened his trap, his way of alerting fans that his players have developed “a chip on their shoulder” about the Sanders story — that “they really are tired of it.” But all he did was illuminate Coach Prime.

     “Why do they do that?” said Shilo Sanders, another Deion son on the team. “They just make it worse. Coach Prime is cool. You don’t have to be that way.”

     Um, why not?

     If I’m reading Norvell properly, he’s attempting to shut down the Sanders rap before it happens. Last week, before a victory against Nebraska, Shedeur said the matchup became “personal” to him when the visiting Cornhuskers held an on-field meeting at midfield. It prompted enemy coach Matt Rhule to take offense, saying, “No one is going to tell me who I am. At the end of the game, they told me, hey, we’re going to run right off the field. And (CU fans) are going to storm the field. I said absolutely not. I don’t care if I get beaten up by a mob, I’m walking, I’m running across the field and I’m shaking coach Sanders’ hand. When you’re losing, people are going to say all kinds of things about you. I know exactly who I am. And I’m coaching this team with class. And I’m not changing. I went over there, and I shook that man’s hand. I whispered in his ear. I’ve never disrespected an opponent a day in my life. And I never will.”

     Earlier in the week, Norvell was complimentary of the man, the myth and the self-professed legend. “Deion Sanders has had a lot of public critics. I'm not one of them," he said. “I really respect all head coaches and the sacrifices they've had to make to become head coaches, and I appreciate the path they have to go through to get there — especially African American coaches. I was happy to see Deion get his opportunity. I had to wait a long time to get mine." Norvell is the first Black head coach in Colorado State football history. This would not be a race riot.

     We could have outbreaks, however, in a land that doesn’t need them. If nothing else, college football is in a period when Sanders rises and Saban appears to be falling — again, the after-effect of Constance Schwartz-Morini, who is Deion’s business partner and manager. How did she know years ago that they should try an Aflac commercial together? She knew. All three knew, but only Sanders is enjoying life right now.

     After losing haplessly at home to Texas and his prodigy, Steve Sarkisian, Saban senses the dogs are chasing him at Alabama. His boy at Georgia, Kirby Smart, is circling a third straight national title. Assuming the Crimson Tide stumble out of the College Football Playoff, this will be the fifth time in six years that he hasn’t won it all. While Colorado’s first two games were viewed by 7.26 million and 8.73 million, with many more this weekend, no one is thinking about Saban’s next game in a sluggish start for the Southeastern Conference. The game has changed. Conference realignment has dizzied everyone. Those watching Sanders create a daily stir sure aren’t stitching about playing in Tuscaloosa.

     “The future is now,” Saban said. “It’s kind of laughable. When was the first time you heard I was going to retire? Five years ago> I’ve always said I don’t want to ride a program down, but I do feel good.”

     Another championship seems doubtful. Meanwhile, Sanders is dealing with coaches calling him and figuring out the portal, but face it: He played in the upper view of the big leagues, among the all-timers at his cornerback position, and he has flair. They do not. He has pissed off coaches everywhere, from Oklahoma’s Brent Venables to Pittsburgh’s Pat Narduzzi, and it’s always been his trait. Before Norvell, he said, “I don't have time to enjoy the moment. Santa don't have time, you know? He gotta deliver the gifts. He ain't got time to enjoy his cookies. That's all he gets. I ain't got time for that. I've gotta keep this machine going, and make sure we stay on the right path. Make sure we're all locked in and focused on the right things."

     How many showdowns does he want? “I had two divorces that were a heck of a showdown, too,” he said. “Don’t tell me about a showdown.”

     Then came the Colorado State coach, calling out his cap and shades. Norvell has coached so often in almost four decades — Iowa, Northern Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa State, Indianapolis Colts, Oakland Raiders, Nebraska, UCLA, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona State and, finally, the head coaching job at Nevada before CSU — that he doesn’t understand the Sanders buzz. That’s OK.

     Until he loses 60-0. And his team has to stop in the locker room and catch its return buses, just outside, to Fort Collins.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.