The two-way exploits of Travis Hunter are incredible. Are they sustainable?
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Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff Writer
BOULDER, Colo. — When Deion Sanders first laid eyes on Travis Hunter, then one of the most highly touted high school recruits in the country, there wasn’t really a need to evaluate him. It was obvious what he was looking at.
“He’s different, as the young folks say,” Sanders said.
Then the coach at FCS Jackson State, history indicated Sanders had no business recruiting Hunter. The idea that someone of Hunter’s caliber would pass on every college football power — let alone the entire Football Bowl Subdivision – to play at Jackson State could have been easily dismissed out of hand.
But with the confidence that perhaps only comes from being one of the sport’s all-time greats, Sanders recruited Hunter anyway.
“You try to find out what makes him tick, what makes him him, and you recruit to that,” Sanders said. “You’re not gonna find anyone in the country with that talent, but with the thought process of how he goes about life, that’s what you’re trying to identify and go select young men that you can then accompany him on his journey.”
For Hunter, having Sanders on board for his journey outweighed any other factor, and now, after a year together in Jackson, Mississippi, his generational talent is on display for the country to see at the heart of Colorado’s resurgence. Through two games, both wins, Hunter has played a mind-boggling 274 snaps as a starter at cornerback and wide receiver — 129 of 158 (81.6%) on offense, 136 of 142 (95.8%) on defense and nine on special teams — and has joined the Heisman Trophy conversation.
Playing two ways was always part of the plan. Hunter dipped his toes into the offensive waters last season (18 catches, 190 yards, 4 TDs), but he and his coach have been preparing for him to go both ways, full time, ever since.
“I know how to do it. I know how to monitor it. I know how to make sure that you are where you need to be,” Sanders said. “But the rule I have is that you must be dominant on one side of the ball before I allow you to go to the other side. You must be dominant. And I feel as though Travis had proved his dominance.”
If anyone can relate to Hunter, it’s Sanders. And if anyone can put themselves in Sanders’ current shoes, it’s Barry Switzer, who coached Sanders with the Dallas Cowboys from 1995 to 1997, when he often used the former NFL Defensive Player of the Year at receiver.
Other NFL teams weren’t as willing to let Sanders go both ways, Switzer remembers, and Sanders wrote in his book, “Power, Money & Sex, How Success Almost Ruined My Life,” that Dallas’ openness to letting him play offense played a role in his decision to sign.
“He could’ve been an All-Pro receiver,” Switzer told ESPN. “It was just that he was more valuable as a shutdown corner.”
In 1996, Sanders ranked second on the Cowboys in receiving yards (475) behind only Michael Irvin, making him one of the few players in modern NFL history to have a sizable impact on both sides of the ball. The decision to let him do it wasn’t complicated.
“He wanted to play,” Switzer said. “It’s what he wanted to do. He would have taken himself out of the game if he couldn’t do it. He played 100 plays, easily. We counted. He had a couple games where he played over 100 plays.”
Sound familiar? With Hunter, the obvious next question becomes: Is this sustainable? Is it possible to go both ways for the bulk of a college football season and remain effective? There are plenty of skeptics.
“I don’t care how good of shape you’re in, 115 snaps, you can do that now because you’re fresh,” one Power 5 defensive coordinator told ESPN. “But I don’t know how you can sustain [that], especially as I would think some teams are going to try to make him tackle and double him in coverage and that sort of stuff.
“You put in a fourth- or fifth-team wide receiver and say, ‘Look, you block him the whole game. I want him on the bench.’ You literally make him exert himself.”
Comments like this make Sanders roll his eyes.
“You got to understand everybody who’s critical of that in saying, ‘He’s gonna tire, he’s gonna do that,’ shoot they can’t cook and answer the phone at the same time,” Sanders said. “I don’t subscribe to that foolishness because that’s who Travis is. Travis is special. He has a tremendous gift and he wants to play.”
It’s similar to how Owen Marecic felt when Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh told him in the spring of 2010 that in addition to his normal fullback responsibilities — a key position in Stanford’s offense at the time — he would also play middle linebacker. He just wanted to play.
Marecic moonlighted on defense the previous year, but starting on both sides — at such physically demanding positions, no less — was a tall order for a team on the precipice of a breakthrough season. And he loved it.
“I just felt like I was always ready to play rather than coming in and out,” said Marecic, who is a third-year orthopedic resident with Stanford Health. “It was just preferable to me. I actually liked that part of it and, honestly, I didn’t feel all that different after a game in terms of like any physical toll that it was taking [by playing both ways].”
Some players are wired for it, but there haven’t been many. That’s why Hunter has jumped into the Heisman race, an award that rarely gives serious attention to defensive players.
“Because [Heisman voters] want action,” Sanders said. “They want to see plays made and it’s hard to make plays when the play is not designed for you to make it. You gotta be so aggressive and so dominant as a Charles Woodson was. To be able to command that type of attention and make those type of plays where you actually win the Heisman. Just having the audacity to get on the offensive side of the ball and be dominant, that gives [Hunter] the upper hand.
When Woodson won the Heisman Trophy in 1997, he did so as primarily a defensive player, but it’s unlikely he would have won if not for the impact he also made on offense and special teams. Woodson finished that season with 11 catches. Hunter had 11 catches in Colorado’s first game, when he also made a critical interception to help the Buffs upset TCU, last season’s national runner-up.
The best comparison for Hunter might be Champ Bailey, who in his final year at Georgia in 1998 caught 47 passes for 744 yards and made 52 tackles on his way to becoming the No. 7 overall pick in the NFL draft the following spring. Then there was Chris Gamble at Ohio State. He caught 31 passes for 499 yards and was a first-team All-Big Ten selection at cornerback as the Buckeyes won the BCS national championship in 2002.
Others such as UCLA linebacker Myles Jack and Washington linebacker Shaq Thompson have made an impact at running back, but those were both in-season solutions necessitated by circumstances, not the plan going into a season.
With “College GameDay” headed to Boulder this week for the Buffaloes’ game against Colorado State (10 p.m. ET, ESPN), Hunter’s rarified air will be spotlighted even more.
Colorado State coach Jay Norvell can’t help but come away impressed.
“For him to play so many snaps, it’s really a credit to the kid and his competitiveness,” Norvell said. “We’ve got to put pressure on him and we’ve got to do our best with our execution to keep him playing, run him around the field. For him to play as many snaps as he’s done is really a credit to him, and to understand the package and to know everything. You’ve got to give the kid credit for what he’s done so far.
“It’s just a unique situation that they’re doing there. It’s probably opened some people’s minds that guys can do it.”
Adam Rittenberg contributed to this story.
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Adam Rittenberg
Art Briles has been hired as the next coach at Eastern New Mexico, a Division II program, as he makes his return to college football after nearly a decade.
Briles, 69, has not worked at a college program since being fired as Baylor’s head coach in 2016 following a review of the university’s handling of sexual assault allegations made against several football players. He since has had stints coaching for Guelfi Firenze in the Italian Football League and at Mount Vernon High School in Texas from 2019 to 2020.
“I am excited to welcome Art to Eastern New Mexico University,” Eastern New Mexico athletic director Kevin Fite said in a statement Monday. “He is an excellent coach, and I look forward to the future of Greyhound football.”
In 2022, Grambling State attempted to hire Briles as offensive coordinator, but following a backlash, he told the school just four days later that he would not pursue the role, saying he didn’t want to be a distraction to the team. A similar situation occurred in 2017 with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League, who tried to hire Briles but then pulled their offer on the same day amid backlash.
Fite served as associate athletic director for compliance and eligibility at Houston when Briles served as the school’s head coach. Briles, who built his reputation as an offensive innovator at Texas high schools before entering the college ranks, went 99-65 as the coach at Baylor and Houston with three conference titles. He led Baylor to 10 or more wins in four of his final five seasons there.
Several months after his firing from Baylor, Briles, in an interview with ESPN, apologized for what happened under his watch of the program.
“I understand that I made some mistakes, and for that I’m sorry,” he said then. “But I’m not trying to plead for people’s sympathy. I’m just stating that, ‘Hey, I made some mistakes. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I’m going to learn. I’m going to do better.'”
In 2023, a federal judge ruled that Briles was not negligent in a case involving a female Baylor student who reported being physically assaulted by one of the school’s football players in 2014. Briles, who led Baylor’s program from 2008 to 2015, received a $15.1 million settlement from Baylor, which fired him with eight years remaining on his contract.
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Andrea Adelson
Florida State coach Mike Norvell will return for a seventh season with the Seminoles, pledging to make needed structural changes within the program to enhance performance, the school announced Sunday.
Questions that had been mounting about Norvell’s job security reached a boiling point after a 21-11 loss to NC State on Friday night that dropped the Seminoles to 5-6. They need a win at Florida on Saturday to reach bowl eligibility.
Over the past two years, Florida State is 7-16 (3-13 in ACC play) and winless on the road. Norvell, however, did win an ACC title in 2023 and has maintained his optimism for the future.
In a statement, university president Richard McCullough said he, athletic director Michael Alford and board of trustees chairman Peter Collins were in “complete agreement that changes are needed for our program to improve.”
“Coach Norvell embraces our support in that process and agrees that success must be achieved. He continues to demonstrate an unwavering belief in this program’s future, and so do we,” McCullough said. “This decision reflects a unified commitment to competing in the rapidly evolving landscape of college football, while maintaining continuity within the program.”
Sources said more resources would be placed into recruiting and the roster, and changes would be made to the personnel department to allow Norvell the best chance to succeed.
Had Florida State moved on from Norvell, the school would have owed him about $54 million in buyout money. All told, Florida State would have owed about $72 million to Norvell and his staff.
In six seasons with the Seminoles, Norvell is 38-33 with only two winning seasons. Despite its record this year, Florida State has made strides over 2024, when it finished 2-10 — the worst program mark since 1974.
Florida State has gone from among the worst offenses in the country — ranking No. 132 in the nation last year — to one of the best, ranking No. 8 this year and outgaining opponents in 10 games.
“The driving motivation behind this is to make certain that we are doing everything properly to obtain and retain elite players, add critical pieces, and sustain long-term success,” Norvell said in a statement Sunday. “I love Florida State, and I am fully committed to this program, and our shared goals.”
The Seminoles opened the year with an emphatic 31-17 victory over Alabama in which the fans stormed the field, a win that perhaps reset expectations for where the program was.
A 3-0 start quickly unraveled on the road at Virginia, where Florida State lost 46-38 in double-overtime. Another embarrassing road loss to Stanford in October forced Alford to issue a statement saying he would do a full program evaluation after the season.
“Hell no, we haven’t,” Norvell said when asked whether his team has met expectations after Friday’s loss to NC State. “We’re not even close to living up to expectations. No, we have not lived up to expectations. We’re a fully capable football team, and that’s not good enough, and that’s not been good enough for the six losses we have, and it’s extremely frustrating.”
The high point under Norvell came in 2023, when the Seminoles celebrated a 13-0 record and ACC championship.
Despite going undefeated and winning a conference championship, the College Football Playoff selection committee left the Seminoles out of the four-team playoff, in large part because quarterback Jordan Travis was lost for the season with a broken leg.
Since then, Florida State has struggled. Norvell admitted the CFP snub had a much deeper impact on his program than he initially realized, but with a young core of players set to return — including freshman standouts Mandrell and Darryll Desir, Ousmane Kromah, Jayvan Boggs and Micahi Danzy — there is a belief the program can build momentum for next season.
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