ESPN debates whether Travis Hunter can sustain dominance on both sides

One of the breakout stars from the first weekend of college football action was two-way player Travis Hunter from Colorado, who dazzled on both offense and defense in a 45-42 upset of No. 17 TCU.

Hunter played 129 snaps and was highly productive on both sides of the ball. But is it sustainable?

“It’s pretty apparent that they’re going to take this guy and he is a legit full-time starter both ways,” ESPN’s Rece Davis said.

How Colorado manages to do that will be interesting. Already coach Deion Sanders has hinted at an abbreviated practice schedule for Hunter to ease his workload, with the two-way star playing so many snaps during games.

In the opener Hunter caught 11 passes for 119 yards, while also recording three tackles, an interception and a pass breakup on defense.

“I don’t want to be a buzzkill about it, but there’s a reason why this is like a once-a-generation thing: It’s really hard to do,” ESPN’s Pete Thamel said. “Desmond Howard this morning brought up a great point on our GameDay call on what his total mileage would have been if they had the sports track GPS stuff. I mean he had to run 16, 17 miles, I have no idea. And it’s not running, you’re sprinting on both sides of the ball.

“He has to be in elite, elite, elite, elite, elite shape.”

Thamel’s speculative shot at a number on the mileage is very off (on the high side), but the point is a valid one. It’s a taxing job to play on both sides of the ball.

Davis circled back around to managing the work load.

“I do think sports science is going to come into play with this, because one of the things even the most veteran coaches like Nick Saban who practice hard have come to accept, if you’ve got a guy who has exerted a certain amount of energy, whether it be in the game or in practices, more coaches have become accepting to saying, ‘Hey look, coach, we’ve had Travis run X number of miles, this is what our data shows us,'” Davis said.

“So full speed all out let’s hold him under whatever (number of) reps in practice this week in order to have him fresh for the game on Saturday. I think that’s something I want to find out this week, how Colorado handled the recovery for Travis Hunter particularly.”

Sanders indicated Hunter would be held out of practice until at least Wednesday to recover. Clearly he plans to minimize the workload within reason for Hunter.

“I think that will go a long way toward telling us whether it’s sustainable,” Davis said. “And also they still have to make sure, because while he’s brilliant, he’s a young player and he probably needs some reps. So how do you strike that balance of making sure he gets the reps he needs on both sides of the ball? Physical reps, he’ll have tons of mental reps, and still make sure that he is really fresh for each of your games.”

Tune in Saturday against Nebraska to find out more.