CU Buffs’ Travis Hunter has Heisman Trophy in his sights

BOULDER — Where the Good Lord gave the rest of us hands, He bestowed Travis Hunter with a pair of pillows, soft and sure.

CU’s new two-way star is a Mega Millions ticket in cleats, a magic lamp that can cut on a dime. The only limits are Sean Lewis’ imagination and Deion Sanders’ patience.

“I want to play all the snaps,” the Buffs cornerback/wide receiver said Monday as Camp Preseason Prime hit Week 2. “I want to play all of them. I don’t like to be off the field. Being off the field, on the sideline, is boring.”

Hunter does not do boring. Or small. In a league with at least six NFL quarterbacks running around, led by USC signal-caller and 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, the affable Georgian was the only man to take up multiple slots on the preseason All-Pac-12 first team, at defensive back and all-purpose/special teams.

“I mean, I pretty much block all that stuff out until it’s time to go,” Hunter said of the summer love. “I mean, I (will get) into that stuff after the season. After I do what I’ve got planned for myself.”

Plans? Oh, he’s got plans, all right.

Hunter this past weekend posted a picture of himself in full CU gear on Instagram with him giving a “sush” finger with his left hand. The caption was the real keeper:

“HEISMAN LOADING ….”

Caleb who?

“The thing with Travis is, there’s everything everyone sees and his physical gifts,” Lewis, CU’s offensive coordinator noted last week when asked about Boulder’s new favorite multi-tasker.

“But his mental capacity to learn, and everything that he’s learning in all three phases of the game (are exemplary). What we are going to ask him to do is, we’re going to continue to stress and test him to see where is that point to where his mental capacity can’t handle anymore. As long as he can continue to take the optics, and know it and process it and apply his God-given abilities … we’re going to maximize that to the fullest.”

No player who’s primarily on the defensive side of the ball has won the Heisman since Charles Woodson edged Peyton Manning in 1997. Since 2000, depending on whether or not you still choose to count Reggie Bush, only four non-QBs have taken the statue home.

With three weeks to go until the Buffs’ Sept. 2 opener at TCU, as far as the oddsmakers are concerned, there’s Williams, then North Carolina signal-caller Drake Maye, then everybody else.

Let’s be clear, though: Hunter is not everybody else. Are you kidding?

People who have been around Coach Prime in recent years have talked to me at length since The Deion Train rolled into Boulder. Some like him. Some don’t. Some think Shedeur Sanders will make an easy transition to the Pac-12. Some still aren’t sure.

But what’s funny is how all of them landed in complete, universal agreement, on the same thing: Travis Hunter is legit.

As in, legit legit.

As in, NFL-scouts-are-coming legit.

As in, Heisman legit.

“(The coaches), they let me go to my limit,” Hunter continued. “And I don’t have a limit. So … it’s pretty much play whatever I want.”

You watch. If the Buffs win, and win early, seats on the Hunter bandwagon will vanish like it’s a Taylor Swift concert.

Week 1 at TCU and Week 2 at home against Nebraska have already landed primo, national time slots on Fox, and conference matchups against fellow Pac-12 escapees Oregon (Sept. 23) and USC (Sept. 30) will become must-see TV if CU opens up 3-0 or a sexy 2-1.

Heismans are snatched off of moments, victories, politics and hype. The latter won’t be a problem: Hunter started the week off with 689,000 followers on TikTok and almost another 600,000 on Instagram. (Context: Texas QB Arch Manning, Peyton’s nephew, has 8,900 and 190,000, respectively. And Williams, who might well be the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, has 21,000 and 198,000, respectively.)

For a guy whose Instagram feed — billboard after billboard, ads for football gloves, fishing equipment, skin and shave products and Ford trucks — often looks like Times Square at night, Hunter takes his craft seriously. After spring ball wrapped, he went to Texas to train, and came away with five added pounds of muscle.

“I feel a lot better, a lot stronger. I feel a lot faster,” Hunter recalled. “I feel a lot healthier, too. So pretty much, I’m good right now.”

He’s got Coach Prime at his back, Shedeur Sanders bending one ear and Buffs legend Michael Westbrook bending the other. Since when does Westbrook ever do boring?

“(He told me), ‘Pretty much, when you’re tired, that’s when your fundamentals come out in your route-running.’” Hunter said. “So that’s pretty much what I learned (from him): I’ve always got to stick with the fundamentals, no matter what.”

“What’s been your best play a camp so far?” a scribe.

Hunter smiled at that one.

“All of them,” he replied.

Heisman loading. Almost time to go.