By Mike Fitzpatrick
Travis Hunter turned every game into prime time – on both sides of the ball – and ultimately won the Heisman Trophy.
He now has a head start on his famous Colorado coach.
The two-way star won college football’s most prestigious award Saturday night, punctuating a tireless season-long performance by a dynamic player with a unique combination of skills.
“I never thought I would be in this position,” said a tearful Hunter, who grabbed the trophy with both hands and let out a roar of joy. “It’s crazy.”
A wide receiver and lockdown cornerback, Hunter dominated on both sides of the ball for coach Deion Sanders and the Buffaloes, joining running back Rashaan Salaam in 1994 as the only Heisman winners in school history.
Hunter received 552 first-place votes and 2,231 points in a comfortable victory. Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty was second with 309 first-place votes and 2,017 points, the closest margin since 2009.
Hunter scored 80.14% of possible points, 11th highest in Heisman Trophy history, and joined Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson (1997) as the only full-time defensive players to win the award . Woodson also made big plays on offense, but didn’t play as much as Hunter on that side of the ball.
Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel came in third and Miami quarterback Cam Ward came fourth in the balloting for the 90th Heisman Trophy, awarded annually since 1935 to the nation’s most outstanding player. This year’s ceremony took place at Jazz at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, with Sanders in attendance.
It was only the fifth time in the century that a quarterback failed to win. The last time no signal-caller placed in the top two was 2015, when Alabama running backs Derrick Henry and Christian McCaffrey went 1-2 in voting.
Hunter also won the Associated Press Player of the Year award this week. He helped spark an impressive turnaround at Colorado, going from 4-8 in 2023 when he missed 3 1/2 games due to injuries to 9-3 this year in Sanders’ second season. The 20th-ranked Buffaloes earned their first bowl bid in four years and will face No. 17 BYU (10-2) in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 28.
Hunter committed to playing rather than skipping the game to prepare for the NFL Draft and avoid any possible injuries, as many top prospects do. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound junior from Suwanee, Ga., plans to sit out his senior season in Boulder and is expected to be a top-five pick by the pros — perhaps even No. 1 overall.
“He wants to be great at everything,” Sanders said. “He wants to be committed to excellence in everything he does, including fishing.”
Showcasing his blazing speed and explosive play, Hunter has rarely left the field this year, making him a constant throwback to generations past and the first true full-time two-way star in decades.
On offense, he had 92 catches for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns, plus one score on the ground. On defense, he had four interceptions, 32 tackles, broke up 11 passes and forced a critical fumble that secured an overtime victory against Baylor.
As the Buffaloes won games and contended for a Big 12 title, he went from a distant underdog in Heisman futures last summer to a big betting favorite this week.
All the while, he was striking Heisman poses with his teammates to celebrate big plays as it became increasingly clear that Hunter was the man to beat.
He played 688 defensive snaps and 672 more on offense — the only player in the Power Four conference with more than 30 snaps on both sides of the ball, according to a Colorado study.
That would seem too grueling a workload for any player these days, both mentally and physically, but not for Hunter.
“I think I’ve set the stage for more people to come in and out in both directions,” he said Friday. “It starts with your mindset. If you believe you can do it, then you can do it. And also, I do a lot of treatments. I am in tune with my body. I get a lot of recovery.
Ranked as the nation’s top recruit in the 2022 class, Hunter surprised many when he committed to play for Sanders at Jackson State, an HBCU that competes in the lower tier of the FCS, with the promise of playing both in attack and defense.
After one season, Hunter followed Sanders to Colorado and was a consensus All-America selection as an all-around player last year, despite three absences due to a lacerated liver caused by a late hit.
After his recovery, a healthy Hunter finished strong in 2023, then really took off this season, catching passes from Shedeur Sanders, the coach’s son, and becoming Colorado’s first Heisman Trophy finalist in 30 years.
Hunter, who plans to get married in May, is the first Heisman winner to play in the FCS.
Deion Sanders, nicknamed Prime Time during his playing days — apparently alone — was a two-time All-America defensive back at Florida State and finished eighth in the 1988 Heisman voting.
An electrifying kick returner, who also played major league baseball, Neon Deion continued his Hall of Fame career as an NFL cornerback, but mostly stuck to offense in over a 36-catch season with the Dallas Cowboys in 1996.
Nothing compares to Hunter, who now has Heisman bragging rights over Coach Prime forever.
