Deion Sanders shares when he knew Travis Hunter would win the Heisman Trophy

As far as Deion Sanders remembers, he had an inkling that Travis Hunter could win the Heisman Trophy rather early on. All it took was seeing the wideout and defensive back up close in person at Jackson State for the first time.

That early practice at Jackson State, Sanders said after Hunter won the award in 2024 playing for Colorado, is when he knew Hunter could win. In his reminiscing, Sanders began to wax poetic about his two-way star.

“When I saw him practice his first day at Jackson State,” Sanders said. “That’s when. When he went out there at receiver and did his thing. Then went from playing receiver to defensive back and shut it it down. I knew right then it was something special. It’s one thing to watch highlights of a young man in high school but it’s another thing to see it in person. And when you know the game and you know athleticism and when you know what I know and come from where I come from, you know when you see something that’s abnormal.

“And this kid from day one has been abnormal with an appetite for — an appetite to dominate. He never relinquished that. He was banged up the first year over there. Banged up a little bit the first year over here. But he just — Travis is Travis, man. Ain’t nobody like him. I don’t think we’ll ever see that in quite some time.”

Hunter caught 92 passes for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns as one of the top receivers in all of college football. Then, defensively, he had 32 tackles, 11 deflections, four interceptions, and a forced fumble at corner.

And Sanders, speaking after the award was handed out, gave himself a bit of a pat on the back for cutting Hunter loose to dominate.

“I don’t think we’ll see it because most of our coaches in college football won’t allow it because they can’t fathom it,” Sanders said. “They can’t fathom a kid that’s able to do that. And they’ve gotta do roster management of this guy crying and paying him a handsome salary in a collective or whatever they want to call the NIL, which it’s not, it’s collective. They’re not going to allow it. I’ll allow it because that’s who he is, that’s what he is. Why would I want to change a guy that gracefully selected us to coach him? And I knew what he had in him and I’ve done it myself, at the highest level, so I can see through the bushes and the fog and the cities and the suburbs. I can see through all that and understand what that young man. And I allowed him to be unapologetically who he is.”