Description: Colorado’s Travis Hunter, the instrumental player who helped achieve five additional wins this year compared to last, proudly accepted the esteemed Heisman Memorial Trophy on Saturday night. This applaudable victory marked him as college football’s top performer. This win now places him as the second Colorado player, after the 1994 winner Rashaan Salaam, to receive this honorable award.
This victory brings a pause in the string of quarterback-dominated Heisman winners, considering quarterbacks have won 20 of the last 23 awards this century. Alongside Hunter, Mark Ingram (2009), Derrick Henry (2015), and DeVonta Smith (2020) of Alabama are the only recent non-quarterback recipients.
Hunter won with a commanding 552 first-place votes and an accumulation of 2,231 points. He bested Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty, Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel, and Miami’s Cam Ward. Hunter’s name graced an impressive 93.32% of all ballots and dominated five of the six voting regions.
Other notable competitors included Cam Skattebo of Arizona State, Bryson Daily of the Army, Tyler Warren at Penn State, and fellow Colorado player Shedeur Sanders. Kurtis Rourke from Indiana and Kyle McCord from Syracuse were also in the top 10.
2024 has been a successful year for Hunter, already being awarded the Biletnikoff Award (Best Receiver), Bednarik Award (Best Defensive Player), Hornung Award (Most Versatile Player which he claimed for the second time in a row), Walter Camp Award (Most Outstanding Player), and named Associated Press Player of the Year.
At 21, Hunter’s performance attests to his adaptive abilities and dominance in college football. Offensively, he tallied 92 receptions for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns. On defense, he logged 32 tackles and four interceptions, seven pass breakups, and allowed only a single touchdown pass this season.
Before rising to college football stardom, Hunter was a sought-after talent of Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Georgia. He first committed to Florida State but then decided on Jackson State, a move that surprised many in the college football world. He aired his ambition to enhance the heritage of HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) as a prime factor for his switch.
Despite a 4-8 record in his sophomore year at Colorado, Hunter’s contributions did not go unnoticed. His tremendous performance in the concluding regular-season game against Oklahoma State potentially solidified his Heisman triumph. Concurrently, Jeanty, also 21, was instrumental in Boise State’s securing the Mountain West Conference and a place in the College Football Playoff, despite not yet breaking Barry Sanders’ 1988 single-season rushing record.
Follow Scooby Axson on X @ScoobAxson for more sports news.