Renck: Never let schooling interfere with the education of opponents. Three Colorado colleges made headlines with seismic events in three different sports: football, basketball and hockey. CU agreed to a revised five-year, $54 million contract with coach Deion Sanders, doubling his salary and all but guaranteeing he will be in Boulder for a few more seasons. CSU promoted popular assistant Ali Farokhmanesh to take over the state’s best basketball program. And DU refuses to go gently into the night, advancing to the Frozen Four and keeping alive its dream of delivering back-to-back national championships. In a state known for its excellence in pro sports, colleges snatched the headlines with smiling emojis. So, who won the weekend?
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Keeler: Ali was The People’s Choice. DU continues to be The People’s Champion. Everybody landed a podium finish, but CU Buffs athletic director Rick George was the one standing on the winner’s step when all was said and done. CSU men’s hoops is on the cusp of a golden age. The Pios are chasing ghosts and banging them against the boards. Yet when it comes to college sports and college money, football rules. And the Coach Prime Phenomenon is going downhill faster than Mikaela Shiffrin right now — a pop culture and sports culture snowball that keeps picking up speed.
Renck: CU landing the plane in negotiations with Sanders was the most unlikely. The Buffs did not have money to pay him two years ago and doubled his salary to $10 million. But the winner is the winner, the Pioneers. Not only are the Pios seeking consecutive crowns, but they aim to win their third title in four years. DU boasts the most national championships (10) in college hockey. The Pios are already the team of the decade. Would anyone be surprised if Carter King, Jack Devine and Matt Davis add another one?
Keeler: The Pios are Sith Lords on skates — your hate only makes them stronger. But does King have Mace Windu posting about him? Does Devine have Denzel Washington fly in for a pep talk? Deion Sanders has made CU a national brand, must-see TV whether the Buffs win or lose. Heck, it doesn’t even matter if CU is playing a game or not — Friday’s pro day/timing day/showcase is even landing a national broadcast. The Buffs get Disney to air their spring game and the NFL to air what’s more or less a sexier version of the old Presidential Physical Fitness Test. That’s due to one guy. And now they’ve got that one guy locked up.
Renck: A cap tip to the Rams for their March Madness run. But it will be March Sadness moving forward if Farokhmanesh cannot win the transfer portal. He already faces the prospect of losing guard Kyan Evans. Maybe he can use some of Coach Prime’s $300,000 Wheels Up air travel allowance. Prime’s economic impact makes him invaluable to CU, keeping the football program relevant in a shifting TV landscape. But the question is about keeping score, right? And no one does it best when it matters most like coach David Carle’s Pios. Give me a tub of popcorn, a clean sheet of ice and DU’s Zeev Buium (#winning).
Keeler: The score on national championships is Carle 2, Prime 0. And the Buffs are paying Sanders more than LSU is paying Brian Kelly, more than Penn State is paying James Franklin and more than Oklahoma is paying Brent Venables. But here’s the difference in Boulder: CU is winning with Deion whether Deion actually wins or not, thanks to all those TV eyeballs and all that merchandise hopping off the shelves. When college football realigns again, and that could be soon, it will likely do so based on teams, brands and coaches that television executives most want to show. And most want to pay for. It wasn’t a question of whether or not George could afford to pay Prime top dollar. It was that he couldn’t afford not to.
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