Dec 14, 2024, 08:54 PM ET
Travis Hunter turned every play into prime time — on both sides of the ball — and ultimately took home the Heisman Trophy.
Now, he has a leg up on his celebrity coach at Colorado.
The two-way star won college football’s most prestigious award Saturday night, punctuating a tireless performance all season 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 hard with two hands and let loose a happy roar. “It’s crazy.”
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A big-play wide receiver and a lockdown cornerback, Hunter dominated on both sides of the ball for coach Deion Sanders and the Buffaloes, joining the late running back Rashaan Salaam in 1994 as the only Heisman winners in school history.
Hunter received 552 first-place votes and 2,231 points. Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty was the runner-up with 309 first-place votes and 2,017 points, making it the closest margin of victory since 2009, when Mark Ingram edged Toby Gerhart. The previous highest total for a runner-up was 1,871 points by Tua Tagovailoa in 2018, when Kyler Murray won.
Hunter garnered 80.14% of the possible points, the 11th highest in Heisman Trophy history, and joined Michigan cornerback Charles Woodson (1997) as the only full-time defensive players to claim the prize. Woodson also made big plays on offense, but he didn’t play nearly as much as Hunter on that side of the ball.
Two quarterbacks — Oregon‘s Dillon Gabriel and Miami‘s Cam Ward — finished third and fourth, respectively, in balloting for the 90th Heisman Trophy, presented annually since 1935 to the nation’s most outstanding player. This year’s ceremony was held at Jazz at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, where Sanders was in attendance.
It marked only the fifth time this century that a quarterback didn’t win. The last time no signal-caller placed in the top two was 2015, when running backs Derrick Henry of Alabama and Christian McCaffrey of Stanford ran 1-2 in the voting.
Hunter’s Heisman Season By The Numbers
1st: Player in Big 12 history to be named first-team all-conference on both sides of the ball in the same season
1st: Player in Big 12 history to rank in the top 10 in receiving TDs (14, 2nd) and interceptions (4, T-3rd) in a season
1: Number of TDs allowed in coverage this season
2nd: Heisman winner from Colorado, joining Rashaan Salaam (1994)
2nd: Full-time defensive player to win the Heisman, joining Charles Woodson (1997)
3rd: Straight transfer player (Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams) to win the Heisman and first winner who started his career in the FCS (Jackson State) since the 1978 split
4: Games this season with an offensive TD and an INT
5th: Receiver to win the Heisman and first since DeVonta Smith in 2020
26: QBR allowed to opposing QBs this season, a number that dropped from 68 in 2023
1,356: Total snaps this season, 434 more than any other FBS player
— ESPN Research
Hunter’s Heisman capped a week full of awards for him, including The Associated Press Player of the Year, the Walter Camp Award as national player of the year, the Chuck Bednarik Award as the top defensive player and the Fred Biletnikoff Award for best wide receiver.
He helped spark an impressive turnaround at Colorado, from 4-8 in 2023 when he missed 3½ games because of injuries to 9-3 this year in Sanders’ second season. The 23rd-ranked Buffaloes got their first bowl bid in four years and will face No. 17 BYU (10-2) in the Valero Alamo Bowl on Dec. 28.
Hunter has pledged to play, rather than skip the game to prepare for the NFL draft — he is projected to go No. 1 overall, according to ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr. — and prevent any possible injury, as many top prospects do. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound junior from Suwanee, Georgia, plans to pass up his senior season in Boulder.
“He wants to be great at everything,” Sanders said. “He wants to have a commitment to excellence in everything he does — including fishing.”
Showcasing his blazing speed and explosive playmaking, Hunter rarely came off the field this year, making him an every-down throwback to generations gone by and the first full-time, true two-way star in decades.
On offense, he had 92 catches for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns, plus a rushing score. On defense, he had four interceptions, made 32 tackles, broke up 11 passes and forced a critical fumble that secured an overtime victory against Baylor.
With the Buffaloes winning games and challenging for a Big 12 title, he soared from a long shot underdog in Heisman futures — his odds reached as long as 75-1 before the season at ESPN BET — to a heavy betting favorite this week.
All the while, he struck the Heisman pose with teammates to celebrate big plays as it became more and more clear Hunter was the man to beat.
He played 669 defensive snaps and 687 on offense — a total of 1,356 that was 434 more than any other FBS player. He was on the field for 84% of his team’s total snaps; no other FBS player accounted for more than 56%.
It would seem like an overly exhausting workload for any player these days, both mentally and physically, but not for Hunter.
“I think I laid the ground for more people to come in and go two ways,” he said Friday. “It starts with your mindset. If you believe you can do it, then you’ll be able to do it. And also, I do a lot of treatment. I keep up with my body. I get a lot of recovery.”
Rated the country’s top recruit in the 2022 class, Hunter stunned many when he committed to Sanders at Jackson State, a historically Black university that plays in the lower-level FCS, with the promise of playing both offense and defense.
After one campaign there, Hunter followed Sanders to Colorado and was a consensus All-America selection as an all-purpose player last season despite sitting out three games with a lacerated liver caused by a late hit.
| Player, School | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Travis Hunter, Colorado | 552 | 261 | 53 | 2,231 |
| 2. Ashton Jeanty, Boise State | 309 | 517 | 56 | 2,017 |
| 3. Dillon Gabriel, Oregon | 24 | 52 | 340 | 516 |
| 4. Cam Ward, Miami | 6 | 24 | 163 | 229 |
| 5. Cam Skattebo, Arizona St. | 3 | 18 | 125 | 170 |
| 6. Bryson Daily, Army | 3 | 7 | 46 | 69 |
| 7. Tyler Warren, Penn St. | 1 | 7 | 35 | 52 |
| 8. Shedeur Sanders, Colorado | 1 | 7 | 30 | 47 |
| 9. Kurtis Rourke, Indiana | 2 | 3 | 10 | 22 |
| 10. Kyle McCord, Syracuse | 0 | 1 | 7 | 9 |
Following 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, was a two-time All-American defensive back at Florida State and finished eighth in the 1988 Heisman voting.
An electrifying kick returner — who also played major league baseball, by the way — “Neon Deion” went on to a Hall of Fame career as an NFL cornerback but mostly just dabbled on offense, aside from a 36-catch season with the 1996 Dallas Cowboys.
Nothing quite like Hunter, who now has Heisman bragging rights on Coach Prime forever.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
