Every year there is much debate and fanfare over who should win college football’s most coveted individual award. This year there really shouldn’t be much debate at all. The winner should be a slam dunk and it should be Travis Hunter. Let’s take a look at why.
Travis Hunter Should Be the Heisman Favorite
The Team, The Team, The Team
Borrowing from legendary Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler who always emphasized the team above all else. In this situation, the Heisman winner has to be on a good team. Not necessarily a national championship team but a good one. Right now the Colorado Buffaloes sit at 8-2 on the season and have a good chance of making the college football playoff.
The Buffs will need to win out to accomplish this and that includes winning the BIG 12 championship game assuming they get there. If they can do these things there is no doubt that Hunter will be a big reason why.
Availability
There is an old saying that the best ability is availability and for Hunter these words ring true. Hunter is playing almost every snap on offense and defense.
One would think that his offensive numbers might suffer from this amount of usage but they have not. In offense he has 74 receptions for 911 yards and nine touchdowns with an average of 12.3 yards per catch. On defense, Hunter has 24 tackles, three interceptions and eight passes broken up.
Marketing
If anyone thinks that playing for Coach Deion Sanders won’t help Hunters Heisman campaign then they don’t understand football. Sanders is a huge personality to say the least and what he has to say carries some weight. His son Shadeur is having a good year but isn’t really at the top of list of Heisman candidates so Sanders has been backing Hunter so the votes don’t get split in such a way to give the trophy to someone else.
Until recently it looked like Boise State running back Ashton Jeffrey was the favorite to take home the Heisman hardware but Hunter has overtaken him and has now become the favorite. It will be very interesting to see how the voting shakes out since both players are impacted in a negative way by being out west.
TV & The Schedule Makers
Well the networks and the schedule makers have done Hunter a late season favor. Both of their remaining two regular season games will be seen by a large portion of the country given that the Buffs play Kansas this weekend at 3:30 PM Eastern and Oklahoma State next Saturday at noon eastern.
Having more eyes on the team and Hunter in particular will only help his Heisman campaign unless he falls flat. However this is unlikely as both opponents have poor defenses and throw the ball a lot which will give Hunter numerous opportunities to showcase his skills.
Basically Hunter has the opportunity over the next two weeks to put the trophy on ice. Let’s not doubt for a minute that his coaches and teammates won’t do everything they can do to make him look good and Heisman worthy. We’re making an educated guess that he ends up hoisting the hardware in New York.
Main Image: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images
