Ralphie doesn’t run, and nobody at Colorado lifts a finger, until genuflecting to the great and powerful Coach Prime.

Long before the Buffaloes handed him a $54 million contract he did not earn on the football field, CU sold its soul to Deion Sanders.

Does anybody in Boulder have the — um — gumption to tell this man no?

I’ve watched new athletic director Fernando Lovo act as if he’s a Prime fanboy instead of his boss.

Paranoid restrictions, cellphones and notepads under threat of credentials being revoked, for a recent “open” football practice are yet another example of how Prime routinely treats grown adults like puppy dogs he can order to sit and stay.

The same week that the Buffs open the season with a tough road test against Georgia Tech, Sanders has been subpoenaed to testify in a multimillion-dollar bankruptcy case faced by Shilo, his 26-year-old son and a former CU safety. But Prime insisted Monday: Nothing to see here!

“Is that a distraction?” Sanders said, when asked by respected Associated Press reporter Pat Graham about the subpoena.

“Dude, you think that’s my first subpoena? Like, when you have it, when you him, when you that, you get sued. You have off-the-field foolishness that if someone really sat down and explained it to you, you would say, ‘You got to be kidding.’ But it is what it is. I don’t know anyone that’s a game changer, a way maker, that is not dealing with some type of lawsuit.”

You’ve got to be kidding me, Prime.

Is Ryan Day, coach of the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes, involved in any current lawsuit?

Will Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire, coach of the defending Big 12 Conference champions, be appearing in court next week, before his Red Raiders are served a tasty cupcake baked by Abilene Christian at their Labor Day weekend picnic?

It sometimes seems as if everyone at CU is tripping over each other to play the fool for Prime. But a coach with a 16-21 record with the Buffs can’t fool the rest of us.

If there is nothing to see here, why has Sanders tried to quash the subpoena by retaining the GOAT of legal fixers in the history of Colorado sports, lawyer Harvey Steinberg?

Nobody asked me, but here’s my football evaluation of the Sanders kids who played for their Pops at CU.

Shedeur is a legit starting NFL quarterback getting a raw deal in Cleveland, which has inexplicably named rotten, no-good Deshaun Watson its starter.

And Shilo would’ve been unable to hold a starting job in the CU secondary if he didn’t know the head coach so well.

Big money troubles have followed Shilo for years and dragged his famous father down in the muck. This wayward son filed for bankruptcy in 2023 after losing a civil lawsuit to a security guard named John Darjean, who accused Shilo of assaulting him a decade ago and won an $11.89 million judgment against him at a trial young Sanders failed to attend.

“You know Shilo won this case previously, right?” Coach Prime declared to reporters assembled Monday for a news conference on the Boulder campus. “Anybody know that? Raise your hand if you know that, if you knew that, that Shilo got awarded money for this. OK… Just check it out. I can’t wait till it’s over and he gets to tell his story. He already won this case, you know? Yeah.”

C’mon, Prime.

Who’s zooming whom here?

Coach Prime likes to collect receipts on media members who have doubted his coaching acumen.

I admire the buzz and bodaciousness Sanders and his next of kin instilled in a CU football program that had fallen off the college football map. But I’m going to need some receipts before believing the nothing-to-see-here stuff you are spewing in defense of Shilo.

But if you invite the circus to town, somebody has to clean up after the elephants.

While Sanders makes for a compelling ringmaster, he has yet to prove himself as a coach who knows how to win football games anywhere near as well as he promotes the Prime brand.

Coach Prime seems to be a genuinely God-fearing man but is far from a humble servant of the university that pays him ridiculously well.

If you’ve seen anybody of authority at CU even remotely question how Sanders goes about his business, or offer even one discouraging word of constructive criticism, kindly let me know. 

When the Buffs recently moved their preseason training camp to the southern plains of Colorado, Sanders spied Lovo standing in the back of the room at a news conference and asked the 37-year-old athletic director if he wanted to say a few words.

When introduced as AD back in January, Lovo obsequiously volunteered he was following one step behind, a dutiful servant in the shadow of Neon Deion.

Declining Sanders’ offer earlier this month to take control of the room at Fountain-Fort Carson High School, Lovo again spoke his truth: It would be impossible for him to follow, much less top, Prime’s act.

The shine is off Prime.

Who has the gumption to tell Sanders to get his act together?