It’s been a great 24 hours for Travis Hunter.
Actually, scratch that. It’s been a historic one for the future NFL star.
He started his morning by announcing he will be signing with sports giant Adidas. As Hunter and the Colorado Buffaloes await their bowl game in a few weeks, the college football world has been handing out end-of-season awards — and it looks like almost all of them have gone to Hunter so far. Hunter played on both sides of the ball for his entire college career, which is something we’ve never seen before — at least at an elite level. So far, it seems like the award givers have similar sentiments, and they are rewarding him like that.
On Dec. 12, Hunter won his first award, the Chuck Bednarik Award. This award is given annually to college football’s top defensive player. He also became the first Colorado Buffalo to earn this, making this moment more historical. Later in the day, Hunter brought home his second award: the Biletnikoff Award. This award is given to college football’s top receiver— and some people argue that might not be Hunter. Nonetheless, the award is his, and that made some more history as well. Hunter became the first person in NCAA history to win both the Bednarik and Biletnikoff Awards. Talk about legendary.
Why are some people in a frenzy about Hunter winning the Biletnikoff? Well, some say the other two finalists deserved it more.
Tetairoa McMillan of the Arizona Wildcats and Nick Nash of San Jose State both offer credible arguments. McMillan finished the season with 1,316 yards — which is nearly 200 more yards than Hunter — but the issue is he only had eight touchdowns compared to Hunter’s 14, and his team only won two games. Nash had more yards than Hunter and more touchdowns, with Nash finishing with 16. He faced similar issues; his team was awful, with winning three games — and they won only three games in a much worse conference. The Mountain West competition pales in comparison to Colorado’s Big 12 Conference, which is a Power 4, meaning it is one of the top four conferences in the NCAA. Also, Hunter had the highest catch rate of all of them, at 96 percent. It really shouldn’t be an argument who the best receiver in college football is; it is far and away Hunter. Sorry but not sorry: we don’t award losing teams.
Hunter’s night wasn’t over, though. He took home the second biggest collegiate award of all yesterday as well: The AP College Football Player Of The Year. He received 26 out of the 43 possible votes. After Dec. 12, that brings Hunter to a total of seven awards so far: the Bednarik Award, the Biletnikoff Award, the Walter Camp Player of the Year Award, the Lott Impact Trophy, the Paul Hornung Award, the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and the AP Player of the Year.
All that’s left for Hunter is the biggest award of all, and that will be decided tomorrow night: the Heisman trophy. Let’s just be honest and get this out of the way now. The Heisman will be going home with Hunter — and deservedly so. He, alongside Deion and Shedeur Sanders, has revitalized college football more than anybody in maybe NCAA history. Colorado was still the talk of CFB last year — when they were bad — and became the story of college football this year as the team turned into a great one. It couldn’t be a more picture-perfect ending for Coach Prime Deion Sanders and, of course, one of the greatest college athletes we have ever seen.
