Why two-way star Travis Hunter can and should play both ways in the NFL

RJ Young

FOX Sports National College Football Analyst

Can Travis Hunter play both ways in the NFL? Yes.

Should he play both ways? Yes.

The “why” behind this begins with the understanding that there has been very little Hunter has shown he can’t do if he desires to tackle a task.

Back in November, ahead of Colorado’s Big 12 showdown against Utah, Hunter walked in on Deion Sanders, his head coach at Colorado, and absconded with a set of shoes he liked in the middle of Sanders’ presser. It was a playful moment in a period of pressure in the sport, and yet his confidence spoke to both his prodigious talent and propensity to do what he’s going to do — regardless of what you think.

That includes playing both ways in the NFL.

In fact, Sanders issued a warning that read more like an ultimatum to the 32 franchises interested in drafting Hunter.

“He’s gonna do that, or they shouldn’t draft him,” Sanders said in a recent interview when asked if Hunter can play both ways in the NFL. “I’m gonna make sure of it. Don’t draft him if you’re not going to give him an opportunity to play on both sides of the ball.”

As Colorado became a top-25 program and finished tied atop the Big 12 regular-season standings at 7-2 – the Buffs’ first time finishing atop the conference standings since they went 8-1 in the Pac-12 in 2016 – Hunter was putting together one of the most impressive seasons in the 155-year history of the sport.

No other athlete has played nearly 1,500 snaps in a season like Hunter did in 2024, and he did that at the highest level — Power 4 conference play — in college football.

No other player has recorded at least 1,000 receiving yards, 15 touchdowns and four interceptions in a single season. No other player has won the Chuck Bednarik Award (given to the nation’s best defensive player), the Fred Biletnikoff Award (given to the nation’s best wide receiver) and the Heisman Trophy in the same season.

The idea that Hunter could be crowned the nation’s best defender and most outstanding player but not be named a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award (given to the nation’s best defensive back), let alone its winner, would be a joke if it was funny.

Hunter is also the first five-star and No. 1 overall recruit — and perhaps the last — to commit and sign with a historically Black university in the FCS, Jackson State, which has made him all the more unique.

But it’s been more than that for Hunter. He has been singular from the moment he entered high school.

Many players dream of being as dominant in the sport as Hunter has proven to be. Indeed, just trying to nail down a comparison for him in an event where comparison is king, the NFL Draft, has flummoxed many. The conversation around Hunter’s pro prospects doesn’t revolve around where he’ll get drafted as much as it does around whether he’ll play both cornerback and wideout.

“The thing about Travis is he is so good at both positions that you have to concern yourself with allowing him to do both, and I get tired of all these people saying what he’s not,” Sanders said of Hunter. “You need to focus on what he is. He’s the best corner going into the draft, he’s the best wide receiver going into the draft, he’s the best football player going into the draft, and he’s a great kid.”

No one knows what it takes to play at the rate Hunter has better than Sanders, who watched Hunter’s development and trusted him to condition himself for the mighty labor that playing both ways comes with. And Hunter never flinched.

Yes, he got hurt, but the injury rate in the sport of football is 100 percent, and while NFL teams usually proceed with extreme caution when it comes to injury-prone players with millions of dollars at stake, Hunter’s injury history doesn’t look the same as even his quarterback in college, Shedeur Sanders, who took 50 sacks in 2023 and suffered a vertebrae fracture.

Hunter suffered a vicious hit in 2023 against Colorado State that resulted in a lacerated liver. In 2024, he suffered a shoulder injury while playing wideout against Kansas State and aggravated that injury against Arizona. He still caught 96 passes for 1,258 yards while maintaining a 4.0 GPA at Colorado last season.

The majority think Hunter can’t keep this up. The NFL is the pinnacle of football, and the game has mastered most players — even Pro Football Hall of Famers — but that’s not the company Hunter keeps as a physical talent.

Let’s stop focusing on comparing Hunter to former NFL defensive backs who also dabbled with playing both ways. If you want to compare him to a player in the modern NFL, let’s compare him to Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry, who rushed for 4,261 yards and 55 touchdowns as a high school senior before cashing in for 2,219 yards and 28 touchdowns at Alabama en route to leading the Crimson Tide to a national title. Many didn’t believe Henry was capable of running over and through opponents in the NFL, which is likely why he wasn’t selected until the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft. In Year 9 of his professional career, he rushed for 1,921 yards and had 2,114 yards from scrimmage with the Ravens.

Many didn’t believe Shohei Ohtani could hit and pitch in Major League Baseball. He has since won unanimous MVP honors three times. In his last full year as a pitcher, he put together a 3.14 ERA, struck out 167 batters, hit 44 home runs, drove in 95 runs, stole 20 bases and batted .304. Last season was the first time Ohtani did not pitch in MLB, and he became the first player in league history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season. Oh, and his Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series.

There are just a handful of other examples: LeBron James making the leap to the NBA in 2003 at 18 years old and becoming one of the sport’s greatest players over the past 22 years, winning four NBA titles and four league MVPs. That’s one less MVP than Michael Jordan, the man many consider to be the greatest basketball player who has ever lived. Deion Sanders is on this list too, as the only person in history to play in both a World Series and a Super Bowl.

But Sanders, Ohtani, James and Jordan stand alone because they’ve won championships at the top level of their sport. Even Henry won a national title. And this is where Hunter falls short — for now.

You’d suspect by now most would bet on Hunter rather than against him, but some folks just won’t admit chocolate can lead to weight gain, smoking can cause cancer and Travis Hunter is going to be great playing both ways in the NFL.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast “The Number One College Football Show.” Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young and subscribe to “The RJ Young Show” on YouTube.

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