Colorado Buffaloes 2024 Heisman Trophy-winning wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter is a historic prospect. He is the only player in FBS history, since 1978, with either 1,000 or more receiving yards and at least three interceptions in a season or 10 or more receiving touchdowns and at least three interceptions in a season, per CBS Sports Research.
The big question for Hunter as he transitions to the NFL in the 2025 draft at the end of April is what side of the ball will he primarily play. At his Colorado Pro Day on Friday afternoon, Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders, a Pro Football cornerback who moonlit at receiver in his 13 NFL seasons played, said Hunter can legitimately do both. Sanders would know. With 53 career interceptions and 60 career catches, Sanders is the only player since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger with 10 or more career interceptions and 25 or more catches in their NFL career. Hunter, 21 years old, played 713 offensive snaps and 748 defensive snaps in 2024, making him the only player since at least 2017 with at least 250 snaps played on both offense and defense in a single collegiate season, per CBS Sports Research.
“Both,” Sanders said on NFL Network’s coverage of Colorado’s Pro Day when asked what side of the ball Hunter will play in the NFL. “NFL is a slow game. You huddle [every play]. How is the contact nowadays? Minimal. That game is more conducive to him [Hunter] being successful [as a two-way player] than a college game. College is tempo, tempo, tempo. Now, you talking about you have to be in shape. Pros, how many seconds between plays? Please, he’s going to go jogging after the after the darn game because he’s going to have all that energy man. He is built for this.”
To Sanders’ point, an average of 35.5 seconds passed between snaps league wide in the NFL in the 2024 season whereas the average time between snaps at the FBS collegiate this past season was slightly faster at 31.8 seconds, per TruMedia. While playing the most total snaps in a season (1,484) by any collegiate since at least 2017 this past year, Hunter produced 96 catches (led the Big 12 and ranked tied for fourth in the FBS), 1,258 yards receiving (second in the Big 12 and fifth in the FBS), 15 receiving touchdowns (led the Big 12 and tied for second in the FBS) while also hauling in four interceptions and registering a forced fumble on defense.
“You would be an idiot to sit out there with your defense on the field and your corners getting killed, and he’s on the sideline by you. What do you think those fans are going to do? Boo,” Sanders said. “You’re already going to be bad because you drafted him early because you’re already bad. Let’s get that straight, you’re already a bad team. What you think those fans going to do when he’s sitting over in the corner are getting bombed?”
Sanders then said if Hunter is primarily a corner that he should have a packed of plays for him to lineup at wide receiver or vice versa if receiver ends up being his primary position.
“He’s going to make your quarterback better, he’s going to make your [offensive] coordinator better,” Sanders said of Hunter. “He’s going to make your whole defense better because a quarterback will look and second guess that throw and say ‘I am really going to try this [throwing at Hunter]? I may have success, but if I don’t, he’s gone with it [an interception].’ That’s who this guy is. This guy is a freak of nature, but not only that man, the two guys we’re talking about [Shedeur Sanders and Hunter], they’re good kids man. They aren’t getting into trouble at night, they’re not out in the streets doing something. One wants to sit at home and play video games [Hunter] and the other one wants to sit at home and make songs [Sanders].”
Many of the teams that could select him — the Cleveland Browns second overall, the New York Giants third overall and the New England Patriots fourth overall — all have much greater needs at receiver than corner. It will be interesting to see if Hunter’s NFL coaching staff shares the same philosophy about the Heisman Trophy winner’s usage as Sanders does.
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