LOVELAND — If Deion Sanders could lead a football team half as well as David Carle coaches hockey, Prime would’ve already commissioned a statue of himself to stand outside Folsom Field.

As the DU Pioneers pushed their unbeaten streak to 14 games on Friday by knocking the ever-lovin’ Red out of Cornell during a 5-0 victory in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, nagging questions buzzed between my ears.

Have we lost sight of what really matters in sports?

Why do we celebrate clicks over championships?

In the era of name, image and likeness, are winners measured by the scoreboard or money in the bank?

After the Pioneers moved within one victory of their third straight appearance in the Frozen Four, I asked Cornell coach Casey Jones what makes the DU hockey dynasty built by Carle so special.

“You want to hire good people and you want continuity. And (the Pioneers) have all of that,” Jones said. “They don’t recruit top-down. They recruit what I call bottom-up.”

Instead of relying on the transfer portal and throwing money at success, the Pioneers take players with NHL potential and teach them the attention to detail and selfless nature essential to a championship culture.

“And that, to me, is still the way to win,” Jones said. The Pioneers “bring in freshmen. He’s not living in the transfer portal.”

Carle is everything Sanders is not.

Carle is definitely understated and quite possibly underpaid.

Carle is a teacher, not a showman.

Carle chases championships rather than commercials.

Sanders unabashedly admits he has no patience for developing a football program, while Carle values roster continuity despite an abundance of DU players who have already been drafted by the NHL.

The Pioneers “have a ton of talent,” Jones said, but Carle “gets those guys to buy in and play the right way. That’s why they’re successful.”

Sanders wears cowboy hats he has kept longer in Boulder than some of his top assistant coaches.

In Tavis MacMillan and Dallas Ferguson, Carle surrounds himself on the DU bench with assistants with gray in their beards and resumes long on head coaching experience.

During his eight years on the Pioneers bench, Carle showed patience with a team that had a tough time figuring out how to play like champions.

In mid-January, after getting swept at home by Western Michigan by the cumulative score of 10-3, DU’s record stood barely above the .500 mark. Earning a berth in the NCAA tourney was far from a foregone conclusion.

“There’s always adversity during seasons,” Carle said. “Either you play through it or you don’t.” 

My oh my, how these Pioneers have grown. They will again face Western Michigan, which eliminated DU in the Frozen Four on the way to winning the national championship a year ago, in the regional final.

“I can’t wait. They ended our season last year. So it’s great to play them again,” said junior forward Sam Harris, who gave the Pioneers a commanding 3-0 lead over Cornell with his goal a little more than 15 minutes deep into the second period. 

While Sanders rants about wanting dawgs that don’t back down to adversity rather than cats who run at the first sign of trouble, Carle doesn’t have to talk about loyalty when he has stayed at DU rather than taking the NHL money and running off to Chicago or Anaheim or Philadelphia.

“He’s a gentleman. He’s good for the game,” Jones said. “He’s passionate about college hockey. If you can’t win yourself, those are the kind of guys you want to win.”  

At age 36, with two national championships already to his credit, Carle already ranks among the 10 most accomplished coaches in Colorado history, regardless of sport or level of competition.

But Carle isn’t as good as Coach Prime at making you look.

Sanders has spent three football seasons in Boulder putting his name above the school logo.

What drives Carle?

Making the Pioneers the greatest name in college hockey rather than making a name for himself.