BOULDER — One of one has won and done. Travis Hunter didn’t just leave shoes at CU big enough to dent the Flatirons. He left four of them to fill.
“You’re just not going to find,” FOX Sports analyst and former NFL lineman Geoff Schwartz, host of the ‘Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You’ podcast, told me, “a corner like that who takes away half the field. And makes the other guys better.”
The heart and soul of The Deion Sanders Revival raised the bar, then left the building far better than he found it. Travis Hunter tales in Boulder will be told like fish stories for decades. Only most of them will be true.
So how do you turn the page from nine wins? From a share of the regular-season Big 12 title? From the 1-2 punch of the best passer in school history (Shedeur Sanders), combined with one of the Buffs’ meanest pass-rush units this century?
More to the point, with a bruising Georgia Tech team on tap Friday night to open CU’s 2025 slate, how do you possibly replace the best player to ever suit up for the Buffs since Whizzer White? Who’s got next?
“That’s a great question,” Schwartz said. “The harder replacement is probably (at) cornerback. You just don’t get a player like that in college football very often.”
Or, really, ever. Hunter in 2024 proved to be one of the best three wide receivers in the country and one of the nation’s top two cornerbacks, all in one package. College football’s Shohei Ohtani became the first player to take home the Biletnikoff Award (for best receiver) and the Bednarik Award (for best defender) in the same campaign. That Hunter became CU’s second-ever Heisman Trophy winner tied a neat little bow on the saga of one of the most electric players to put on the black and gold.
If last fall was the fun part, this one is the hard part. Is there life after Travis? Is there a CU sequel on this roster? How do you account for 96 catches, 16 total TDs, 1,258 receiving yards, four interceptions, 11 pass break-ups, 35 tackles and a forced fumble?
How do you replace a “money” player? With a little creative thinking. The Buffs have to try to recreate Hunter in the aggregate.
“It’s like (the movie) ‘Moneyball,’” Schwartz continued. “When you talk about replacing their players, when they talk about replacing those parts, they say it’s about the sum of their parts.
“Everyone else has to pick it up a little bit to cover for not having (Hunter) there. When you lose someone where it’s very hard to replace 1-for-1, then you have to replace the ‘1’ with two or three. And if you get three guys playing a little better, that might equal the one guy that you lost.”
Defense: DJ McKinney, your time is now
If anyone could empathize with what Riley Moss went through a year ago with the Broncos, it was McKinney, the Buffs’ redshirt sophomore cornerback. When one guy takes away half the field, guess whose half they’re throwing to?
“You need a guy like DJ McKinney to step up and others as well to help shore up those holes that (Hunter) left,” Champ Bailey, the Broncos legend and current football analyst with Warner Bros. Discovery/TNT, told The Post recently.
“But I look at McKinney. I was able to put my eyes on him for a short period of time when I watched him practice in the spring. He’s big, long, athletic. So I expect him to hold up his end.”
A transfer from Oklahoma State, McKinney became to the CU defense what wideout LaJohntay Wester was for the offense — an unsung performer whose heroics flew under the radar while Hunter rocked the main stage.
Time and again, McKinney got tested. And as with Moss, teams often wound up regretting it.
The Texan finished with 62 tackles, three picks, nine pass break-ups and three tackles for loss last fall, his first with the Buffs. At 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, McKinney’s got the length and strength to be a CB1. Pro Football Focus graded him out as CU’s fifth-best defender (74.3 out of 100) last season, while his pass-coverage grade (75.3) ranked third after Hunter and safety Carter Stoutmire.
Offense: Who’s the third-down option?
Generational cornerbacks are precious and few. And yet in terms of highlight moments? In terms of consistency? Hunter might be missed even more as a wideout.
Opposing offenses stopped throwing at Travis The DB pretty quickly. When it came to Travis The WR, though, opposing defenses didn’t have a choice.
Hunter was a human glitch. A walking cheat code. As a receiver, he acted as if any ball in the air, no matter where it was thrown, was his to snatch. Drops were for mortals.
The memory cheats sometimes, but not when it comes to Shedeur-to-Travis converting third-and-forevers as if they were layups. Stats back that up: In 2024, Hunter averaged a whopping 15.96 yards on his third-down receptions last year. His 23 catches on third down were more than LaJohntay Wester (17) and Will Sheppard (four) combined, and they had some excellent moments themselves.
“Last year, the (CU) offense was, to some degree, ‘Travis, go make us plays,’” Schwartz said. “Those guys are not there anymore, so I’m curious to see in Game 1, what does the offense look like when they’re not there?”
CU QBs will need a safety blanket. Returnees Omarion Miller and Drelon Miller were responsible for four and three third-down receptions, respectively, in 2024.
Transfer Sincere Brown, at 6-5 with hops, offers potential matchup problems. Running mate Joseph Williams, a 6-2 target from Tulsa, caught 10 balls on third down last year, good for second on the Golden Hurricane’s roster. Hykeem Williams, a portal get from Florida State, collected four in nine games.
“I feel like the team is very hungry, especially in that receiving room, to prove something,” Buffs linebacker Jeremiah Brown noted last week. “(To prove) that they can take that step up and fill in those shoes of the LaJohntays, the Jimmy Horns, the Will Sheppards and the Travis Hunters.”
The next step’s a doozy. And when it comes to life after Travis, the best revenge is living well. The best sequel, too.
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