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Travis Hunter deserves Heisman but won’t make final impression

He fought the wrong fight earlier this week, taking a stand for a meaningless position award.

‘If this ain’t the most idiotic thing in college football,’ Colorado coach Deion Sanders said.

You want idiotic? I’ll give you idiotic.

Travis Hunter is the best player in college football, and the best player in college football may not be on the field during championship week. And that might just be enough for him to lose the Heisman Trophy.

If we’ve learned anything about voting for the most coveted individual award in sports, it’s that those voting are prisoners of the moment. Unless it’s an obvious choice (like Jayden Daniels in 2023), the final weekend has significant impact on voters.

So unless something funky happens in this final weekend of the Big 12 race – and why couldn’t it, considering what we’ve already seen? – Colorado will miss the Big 12 championship game and the best player in college football will be out of sight, out of mind next weekend, sitting home while the moment passes.

While Dillon Gabriel will be leading No.1 Oregon (likely against No.2 Ohio State) in the Big Ten championship game, elevated on the biggest Heisman stage of the regular season.

While Ashton Jeanty will be playing in Mountain West championship, adding to his 2,228 rushing yards and 28 touchdowns ― and still chasing the immortal single-season rushing record of Barry Sanders.

While Cam Ward could be playing for the ACC title to give Miami its first outright conference championship since 2002, and improve his video game numbers.

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Meanwhile, the player who must be accounted for at all times on the field, both offense and defense, will be sitting home. The player who had his third interception of the season on the third play of Friday’s rout of Oklahoma State – because Cowboys quarterback Maealiuaki Smith tested him, and then, like many this season, didn’t again – will watch as others command the stage.

The player who, for the fourth time in two years at Colorado caught a touchdown pass and intercepted a pass in the same game, who again participated in more than 100 plays (like he has every game he has started and completed this season), will hear about Gabriel’s magnificent career.

Or Ward’s one-season march through the ACC, dismantling everything in his path like Sherman through Atlanta.

Or Jeanty’s inspiring and spiritual road to greatness, a player no one wanted now threatening the untouchable record.

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They’re all four worthy of the Heisman, all with unique stories and elite games that could win in many other seasons. But Hunter is different ― and has been from the moment he left Collins Hill High School in Suwannee, Georgia.

He committed to play at Florida State, the first big recruit for Seminoles coach Mike Norvell. And then the improbable happened, beginning with (what else?) a recruiting pitch from Coach Prime himself ― then the coach at Jackson State.

Why do what everyone else does? Be more than a football player, be a transcendent figure of society. Be a change agent.

Why follow all of those great players at Florida State – including Sanders, maybe the best to ever wear the Garnett and Gold of the Seminoles – and become one of many? You can become one of one at Jackson State, the No.1 overall high school recruit spurning big-time college football for an historically black college at the Championship Subdivision level.

Turns out, he’s one of one in major college football after all.

In two years since following Sanders to Colorado, Hunter has been the most dynamic non-quarterback in the game. This season, he’s the best at any position ― even though he plays two.

It’s more than the 82 catches for 1,036 yards and 11 touchdowns, and the interceptions and his ability to lock down one side of the field in the pass game. Teams simply don’t throw at him.

Meanwhile, Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders throws at Hunter every chance he gets, saying earlier this season, ‘If he’s near it, he’s catching it.’

Hunter participated in 68 offensive plays against Oklahoma State, and 46 more on defense. He was pulled from the game with 11 minutes to play because Colorado led 52-0.

This rare season is so undefinable, we’ve been reduced to hearing comparisons to Champ Bailey and Charles Woodson. Two great players, but two players who didn’t have near the impact on both sides of the ball as Hunter.

Woodson won the Heisman in 1997 at Michigan, and Bailey was an All-American at Georgia. Neither were the player Hunter has been in two seasons at Colorado.

If Hunter played at Michigan or Georgia and put up similar numbers, the Heisman race would already be over. As it is, we have to sit through the announcement of finalists for idiotic position awards, and wonder what in the world those who vote for the award are watching.

Unless something funky happens Saturday in the Big 12 race (it’s too convoluted to explain), we’re going to see what Heisman voters are watching next week ― and it won’t be Hunter.

And another potential idiotic trophy moment.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

This post appeared first on USA TODAY

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