Travis Hunter: CU’s Unicorn

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Travis Hunter: CU’s Unicorn

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Over the past two years, Buff fans have become familiar with the look of Coach Prime’s office on the fifth floor of the Champions Center. Between his national interviews and his own media following, we know that the wall behind the desk of CU’s head coach is filled with Coach Prime quotes and quips (“I don’t use cologne. Confidence is my natural odor”; “You look good, you feel good; You feel good, you play good; You play good, they pay good”).

Next door to Coach Prime’s office is CU’s “closing room”, where recruits and their families are brought when it’s time to get a commitment. In addition to fine adornments and a balcony with a spectacular view of Folsom Field and the Flatirons, there are a few of CU’s most treasured trophies, including the 1991 Orange Bowl trophy and the 2001 Big 12 championship trophy.

One floor below Coach Prime’s suite, on the fourth floor of the Champions Center, there are the offices of the CU coaching staff. Along the hallways, and in the open area, you can find many of the trophies CU and its players have earned over the years. Trophies commemorating bowl victories and conference championships are on display in large glass cases.

Down on the first floor, where you find the CU locker room, national awards won by Buffs over the years are on display in Legacy Hall, together with, given its own special placement, CU’s 1990 AP National Championship trophy.

Many trophies; many memories.

But after what Travis Hunter has accomplished in his two years in Boulder, CU is going to have to rework its displays, as CU’s unicorn has rewritten not only the record books, but has blazed a trail on untrodden ground.

In the week leading up to the Heisman trophy presentation, Hunter was named the AP Big 12 defensive Player-of-the-Year, as well as the Big 12 defensive Player-of-the-Year. Hunter also picked up five new national awards:

• The Walter Camp Award, given to the nation’s best player;
• The Paul Hornung Award, given to the nation’s most versatile player (which Hunter also won in 2023);
• The Chuck Bednarik Award, given to the nation’s best defensive player;
• The Fred Biletnikoff Award, given to the nation’s best wide receiver; and
• The Ronnie Lott IMPACT Award, given to the nation’s best defensive player.

When it was announced that Hunter had wone both the Bednarik Award and the Biletnikoff Award, CU’s two-way star became the first player in college football history to win national awards on both offense and defense … much less in the same season.

Buff fans were left wringing their hands over Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty winning the Maxwell Award, which, like the Walter Camp Award, goes to the nation’s best player, but the split was not all that uncommon. Since 2000, the Maxwell and Walter Camp player of the year awards have gone to different players 12 times.

The haters were all over Hunter’s stats (I will long remember the Oregon Duck mascot going on the Pat McAfee show on ESPN, writing on a white board: “Stats over Snaps”), but the outrage rang hollow.

A deeper dive into the numbers showed the nation just how amazing Hunter was on both sides of the ball …

On offense, Hunter caught 92 passes for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns while picking up 53 first downs and had just three drops.  Per PFF, he caught 11-of-16 contested catches and also led all FBS players with 21 receptions of 20 yards or longer.  He had a contested completion percentage of 68.8, one of 14 players over the two-thirds mark, and his overall completion percentage of 80.0 was the third-best in the Power 4 and fifth best in the FBS.

Hunter had 396 yards after the catch and 185 after contact.  His 14 touchdown passes set a new CU season record while his 92 catches ranks second and his 1,152 yards ranks fifth, with the Alamo Bowl still to be played.

On defense, Hunter was one of the top shut-down cornerbacks in the nation. Hunter earned a cover grade of 91.1 on Pro Football Focus, the top mark in the FBS.  In 378 cover snaps, he was in press coverage 185 snaps and targeted just 38 times, or 10.1 percent of the time, the fourth lowest mark in the FBS.  He allowed just 22 catches for 205 yards and one touchdown, giving up an FBS-low six first downs.  He had four interceptions and 11 pass breakups.

His run defense grade was the fifth best in the Power Four conferences for corners with at least 300 snaps, which included a walk-off forced fumble in overtime against Baylor.

Oh, and Hunter is a 4.0 student, and an Academic All-American.

Buff fans have been able to watch a generational player, one we will be talking about with reverence for years.

In the end, though, it turned out the fears of the Buff Nation about Hunter losing the Heisman – despite being a once-in-a-lifetime talent – were justified. Hunter won the Heisman with 552 first-place votes and 2,231 total points. Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty finished second with 2,017 points, marking the smallest margin of victory in Heisman voting since 2009.

Now, though, the Buff Nation can put the hand-wringing and twitter wars to bed. Hunter is now, and forever will be, CU’s second Heisman trophy winner.

With the addition of the Heisman trophy, Hunter has been given seven major national awards. Before Hunter, CU players had won ten major national awards … combined.

Let’s repeat that one … of all of the major national awards, Colorado players had won, in the history of the program, ten trophies. In two seasons, Travis Hunter has won seven.

For the record, here are CU’s previous major award winners:

• Rashaan Salaam won three in 1994 (Heisman; Doak Walker; Walter Camp);
• Two Butkus Award winners – best linebacker (Alfred Williams, 1990; Matt Russell, 1994);
• One William V. Campbell trophy – the “Academic Heisman” (won by Jim Hansen in 1992);
• Two Jim Thorpe Award winners – best defensive back  (Deon Figures, 1992; Chris Hudson, 1994);
• One John Mackey Award winner – best tight end (Daniel Graham, 1991); and
• One Ray Guy Award winner – best punter (Mark Mariscal, 2002).

Before this week, here’s how close CU has come to winning some of the awards coming to the Champions Center for the first time …

• The closest any Buff had come to a Biletnikoff Award came in 1996, when Rae Carruth was one of three finalists;
• The closest any Buff had come to a Bednarik Award came in 2007, when Jordon Dizon was a semi-finalist; and
• The closest any Buff had come to a Lott IMPACT Award came in 2008, when Jordon Dizon was a semi-finalist.

CU’s second Heisman also puts the Buffs in some rarified air nationally.

Colorado was already one of only two dozen schools in the nation with a national championship and a Heisman trophy winner (one of three in the Big 12, with TCU and BYU; CU was also one of only three in the Pac-12, with USC and UCLA).

Now, with Travis Hunter’s Heisman, CU is one of only 14 schools in the nation (and the only school in the Big 12) with two or more Heisman trophy winners to go with at least one national championship.

“This kid is not only an unbelievable athlete, but an unbelievable person,” CU head coach Deion Sanders said on the ESPN awards show. “He’s like my fourth son. I love him to life. He’s everything a coach would ever want in a player as a leader, as a dog. He checks all boxes. You’re rambling off all these awards that he’s winning, and I’m so happy and I’m so elated, and I’m so thankful because he deserves every last one of them.”

“I’m super confident, and I believe that I can do it at the next level,” Hunter said. “I’m not going to let anyone tell me that I can’t do something that I already done. They said I couldn’t do it in college, and I ended up doing it in college.

“A lot of people tell me I can’t do it in the NFL, but I’m going to still do it in the NFL. You know, a lot of people just let other people get in their ear, so they don’t let them do it, and some people don’t have the body type to be able to go both ways full time.”

When Hunter was asked about being described as a unicorn by a reporter, he said, “A unicorn is just different, different from everybody else. It’s just hard to do what the unicorn can do.”

Travis Hunter … CU’s unicorn.

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