Keeler: CU Buffs’ Travis Hunter wins 2024 Heisman Trophy, cements legacy as greatest Buffs football player

Who knew a unicorn could make you cry?

There’s a Hunter in the Heisman House, now and forever. And the best two-way player to ever wear a CU Buffs football uniform, Travis Hunter, sealed his immortality Saturday night, speaking from the heart and screaming from the soul.

“Let’s goooooo!” Hunter, CU’s two-way, record-setting junior, exclaimed after winning the 2024 Heisman Trophy during a ceremony at the Lincoln Center in New York City.

He screamed. He smiled. He flexed. He lifted the Heisman, then shook it like a celebratory bottle of champagne in the winning locker room of life.

An emotional Hunter fought back tears — and sometimes lost — as he became just the second Buffs player to win college football’s most prestigious honor and the first since the late Rashaan Salaam in 1994.

“I’m gonna keep going,” said Hunter, the former Georgia high school standout who led CU in interceptions (four), catches (92) and receiving touchdowns (14, a Buffs single-season best). “Never let (anybody) tell you what you can’t do. Always do it and keep your foot on the gas.”

Hunter thanked his Maker. He thanked attendees such as his mother; his grandmother; CU coach Deion Sanders, who recruited him out of high school and whom he followed from Jackson State to CU; Buffs quarterback Shedeur Sanders; his teammates; his little brother; rapper and five-time Grammy winner Lil Wayne; and CU fans.

But perhaps the most sincere tribute Hunter gave, and the one that made grown men weep, was for his father, Travis Hunter Sr., who wasn’t there in person but in spirit, a fire burning inside a son’s heart.

“I did it for you, man,” the younger Hunter said, his voice quivering. “I know you wanted to be here but you can’t. … I got you. I’m bringing the trophy home. I love you.”

While Hunter’s “Heisman moments” were rarely questioned nationally, his candidacy faced a stiff challenge from Boise State All-American running back Ashton Jeanty, who finished second in the voting. In polling that probably ran a little too close for Buffs fans’ comfort, Hunter won the trophy by 214 points (2.231-2,017), the narrowest margin among the electorate since 2009. The Buffs great finished with 552 first-place votes to Jeanty’s 309.

“Champ Bailey, Charles Woodson, none of them (did) it like this kid,” former CU All-American wideout Michael Westbrook, who was considered the best receiver in modern Buffs history, told me earlier this fall. “Nobody. I can’t even hesitate.”

Like Nuggets icon Nikola Jokic, Hunter’s a unicorn, a generational talent blessed with the head, heart and hands to forge a seminal, singular path. Since 1980, no college football player at the FBS level had intercepted four passes in a season while also catching at least 90 passes and racking up at least 13 receiving touchdowns. Until Hunter. Until him.

But a better parallel, and argument, for Hunter’s Heisman bona fides might be Shohei Ohtani, the Rockies-mashing star of the Los Angeles Dodgers, another true original.

Ohtani’s not the best power hitter in baseball — that’s Aaron Judge. He’s not the best pitcher — that’s Tarik Skubal, Hunter Greene or Chris Sale. He’s not the best base-stealer — that’s Elly De La Cruz.

And yet the National League slugger is the most distinctive combination of elite power, elite pitching and elite speed, in one package, since Babe Ruth a century ago.

Hunter is to the gridiron what Ohtani is to the diamond. If there were better defensive-only college secondary stars in 2024 than the Buffs’ two-way threat, you could count them on one hand. The same could be said of offense-only wide receivers — although Hunter won the Biletnikoff Award anyway. Nobody else carried the complete package with them, uphill, at altitude, elevating an entire program in the process.

None of this was ever meant to take away from Jeanty, the Doak Walker and Maxwell Award-winning speedster, a man who’s somehow managed to run, step for step, stride for stride, with Barry Sanders’ ghost.

Jeanty is doing things on the field that no one’s seen since Sanders four decades ago. Hunter does things, in tandem, that no one can remember seeing from anyone else. Ever.

And yes, if you take Jeanty away from Boise, CSU might’ve won the Mountain West this year. And yes, if you take Hunter away from the Buffs, CU’s got a handful of NFL-ready WR1s who can handle one side of the ball and a fair amount of depth at corner to handle the other.

But it’s also a classic false equivalency. Would the Buffs have won seven or eight games without Hunter? Probably. But they sure as heck don’t beat Baylor. CU also went 1-2 in the three games in which he didn’t play last fall. And gave up 35 points at home to CSU in ’23 and 31 points at Folsom to Kansas State this fall in the games in which Hunter missed most, or all, of the second half. If you didn’t feel his impact when he played, or notice it when he didn’t, it’s because you willingly put your hands over your eyes.

The Heisman is a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s not an MVP award. According to the Heisman’s very website, the trophy is “awarded to the outstanding college football player in the United States whose performance epitomizes great ability combined with diligence, perseverance and hard work.”

Hunter told Fox Sports’ Big Noon Kickoff last month that his weekly routine includes “at least 10 hours” of film study. After being named an Academic All-American this past winter while sporting a 3.6 GPA, he switched majors from psychology to anthropology. For a guy everybody wants a piece of, No. 12 is college football’s most famous homebody, taking questions from fans last fall while wearing a giraffe onesie.

Last fall, Hunter teamed up with Cheez-It to donate $10,000 to his alma mater, Collins High School near Suwanee, Ga. This past January, he presented a check for $10,620 to Children’s Hospital Colorado at its Anschutz Campus.

“I just have a different type of mindset,” Hunter reflected last month, “where I don’t go out. I don’t drink, I don’t do none of that extra stuff. I go home, chill with my fiancé, play video games. …

“I’m not going to do anything and keep my head in the right space. It’s going to be kind of hard (to repeat my career) because a lot of kids come in with different type of things on their mind. And so they’ve just got to be focused.

“But I definitely think some kids could do it. They’ve just got to be focused and ready to put all the hard work and the dedication for it.”

Boulder hadn’t seen anything like him before. CU might not see anything like him again.

“People have said that about me, that I was the best athlete (at CU),” Westbrook said. “No. I’m not any longer. (Hunter) is literally No. 1.”

The bar at Folsom hasn’t just been reset. It’s been raised. A Mile High.

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.