Travis Hunter made it clear: He has one more game to play before he says goodbye to college football, Colorado and Deion Sanders.
As for Sanders, Hunter believes Coach Prime when he says he isn’t leaving Boulder anytime soon.
Hunter, the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday, confirmed that he planned to play in the Alamo Bowl against No. 17 BYU on Dec. 28, during a media availability for the four Heisman Trophy finalists at a hotel in midtown Manhattan on Friday.
“It’s definitely important because I started this thing with Coach Prime and Shedeur and most of the coaches on the coaching staff, so I want to finish it off right,” Hunter, sporting a black-on-black ski cap emblazoned with a New York Yankees logo, said Friday. “You know, I didn’t give him a full season my first year. So I’m gonna go ahead and finish this thing off right. It’s gonna be our last game together. So we’ll go out there and dominate and show the loyalty that I have for them.”
Sanders was quick to shut down any talk about his players, including Hunter and quarterback Shedeur Sanders, opting out of the postseason after No. 23 Colorado (9-3) finished its regular season.
Hunter, Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty, Oregon quarterback Dillion Gabriel and Miami quarterback Cam Ward arrived in New York on Friday for the upcoming Heisman ceremony. The Florida native Hunter was especially geared up for the frigid temperatures.
Our 2024 Heisman Trophy finalists – Ashton Jeanty, Travis Hunter, Cam Ward and Dillon Gabriel – have arrived! Welcome to the Big 🍎 gentlemen. #MoreThanATrophy pic.twitter.com/3vmmtGGX4E
— The Heisman Trophy (@HeismanTrophy) December 13, 2024
Along with a little sightseeing in the Big Apple, the players received some cool swag: Beats headphones, Nike merch and Axia Time watches.
Nice way to start a team. pic.twitter.com/sB2YKMyox6
— Ralph D. Russo (@ralphDrussoATH) December 13, 2024
Hunter is favored by BetMGM to win the award and Jeanty has the second-best odds. Either will snap a string of three straight quarterbacks to win the Heisman and seven of eight QB winners.
Hunter, who followed Sanders from Jackson State to Colorado after playing his freshman season in the SWAC, has been a true two-way star for the Buffs this season.
He is fifth in the country in catches with 92, sixth in receiving yards at 1,152 and second in touchdown catches with 14. He also leads the team with four interceptions and is tied for fifth nationally in passes defended with 15. On Thursday night, Hunter won the Bednarik Award as the nation’s best defensive player and the Biletnikoff Award, which goes to the top receiver.
“I’m definitely not tired,” he said. “I probably look tired, like sleepy wise, because I take a nap at 1 o’clock every day, and I didn’t get that chance today. But other than that, I’m good.”
Hunter is also The Athletic’s Dane Brugler’s No. 1 prospect in the upcoming NFL Draft.
Hunter is a former five-star recruit from Florida who made the unprecedented move to play at FCS Jackson State when Sanders was the coach there in 2022. Hunter and Sanders often talk about how their relationship is akin to father-son.
Sanders has said he has no plans to follow Shedeur and Hunter to the NFL, and that he intends to remain at Colorado.
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Hunter’s take: Believe the man.
“I got a lot of insight. He ain’t going nowhere. He’s going to be right where he at right now,” Hunter said.
This Heisman Trophy race has been the most unusual in recent memory, and it’s likely to wrap-up with a winner who has no real recent comps. You’d have to go back to at least the early 1960s to find players who put in time on both sides of the ball anywhere near to the level Hunter has this season.
This century, 20 quarterbacks have won the Heisman. Three have gone to running backs — yes, we’re all officially counting Reggie Bush as a winner again — and one to a receiver (Devonta Smith).
Here are five reasons why this Heisman race has been odd:
Playoff expansion
Since 2000, only six Heisman winners played for teams that weren’t serious national championship contenders deep into November. LSU’s Jayden Daniels last year was the first player to fit that description since Louisville’s Lamar Jackson won the award in 2016.
The new 12-team Playoff meant more teams were in the national championship race deeper into the season, like Colorado, which went into the final weekend of the regular season with a chance to make the Big 12 title game and win its way into the CFP bracket.
In a four-team CFP, Boise State would have been a fringe contender to make the playoff from a Group of Five conference. Instead, Jeanty and Co. were in the thick of the Playoff discussions all season.
For the first time since 2017, the list of finalists does not include a player from Alabama or Ohio State.
The Crimson Tide had two winners during that time in receiver Smith in 2020 and quarterback Bryce Young in 2021 and two more finalists in quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa (2018) and Mac Jones (2020). Bama was there in spirit in 2019 when Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts, a Tide transfer, was the runner-up to LSU’s Joe Burrow.
Ohio State has been shut out of the winner’s circle over that period, but no school has had more finalists recently than the Buckeyes’ six: Dwayne Haskins (2018), Justin Fields (2019), Chase Young (2019), C.J. Stroud (2021 and 2022) and Marvin Harrison Jr. (2023).
The path to winning the Heisman as a non-QB has almost exclusively been through Tuscaloosa this century. Of the four winners who did not play quarterback, the last three played at Alabama: Smith and running backs Derrick Henry (2015) and Mark Ingram (2009).
The only other non-Bama, non-quarterback winner was USC’s Bush in 2005.
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Outside the P … whatever.
A top-two finish for Jeanty, the Mountain West player of the year and nation’s leading rusher, would be the first from a player outside a power or BCS-automatic qualifying conference in 32 years, when San Diego State running back Marshall Faulk finished second to Miami quarterback Gino Torretta.
In fact, the last time a player from outside a power conference finished in the top five of the voting was 2017, when San Diego State running back Rashaad Penny of the Mountain West finished fifth in the voting.
Boise State’s best Heisman finish was by quarterback Kellen Moore, who was fourth in 2010.
BYU quarterback Ty Detmer in 1990 was the last Heisman winner to play for a school outside of what were typically considered the power conferences, though those distinctions were not quite as pronounced back then. The Cougars played in the WAC, beat still-independent Miami early in the season and were just six years removed from a national title.
No QBs in the top-two
The last time neither of the top two Heisman vote-getters was a quarterback was also the last time a running back won the award. In 2015, Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey was the runner-up to Henry.
Deshaun Watson of Clemson was third and Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield was fourth that season, but half the top-10 was running backs (LSU’s Leonard Fournette, Florida State’s Dalvin Cook and Ohio State’s Ezekiel Elliott were Nos. 6-8).
The U is back
Ward is Miami’s first player to even break the top-10 in Heisman voting since 2002, when running back Willis McGahee finished fourth and Ken Dorsey was fifth.
When Miami was regularly winning national titles — five between 1983 and 2001 — it was, not surprisingly, also regularly producing Heisman contenders.
From 1984 to 2002, Miami had 13 top-10 finishers, including winners Vinny Testaverde in 1986 and Gino Torretta in 1992. Among the notable: linebacker Michael Barrow finished seventh in 1992; defensive tackle Warren Sapp was sixth in 1994; and offensive tackle Bryant McKinnie was eighth in 2001.
Required reading
(Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
