Joel Klatt: Travis Hunter became college football's next big superstar during Week 1

Joel Klatt was on hand to witness Travis Hunter’s rise into becoming a household name during Colorado’s season-opening victory over TCU on Saturday.

The FOX Sports broadcaster and analyst was on color-commentary for Hunter’s incredible performance against the Horned Frogs. In the days following, Hunter has rocketed up Heisman rankings and become one of the more well-known college athletes in the nation, and Klatt believes this is only the beginning.

“You’ve got to have stars, and boy, we’ve got ourselves a new superstar in college football. Travis Hunter is, to steal Deion’s term, him. Travis Hunter is him. … There’s no precedent for what I saw on Saturday from Travis Hunter,” explained Klatt, via The Joel Klatt Show. “There’s very little for me to draw on to analyze. I’ve never seen anything like that before whatsoever. I’ve never seen a player walk on to the field and be the most elite player on the field on both sides of the ball. I’ve never seen that before.

“Maybe in high school. Maybe. Maybe Vince Young should’ve played some safety or something when I played him, because maybe he would’ve been amazing too. But man, Travis Hunter was unbelievable.”

Continuing, Klatt believes Hunter’s performance was simply absurd, and it’s hard to choose anyone else as the best non-quarterback in all of college football at the moment.

“Let’s just walk through a little bit of this,” Klatt said. “He was the most impactful defender for either team, and he made some of the biggest catches of anybody on the field. … Travis Hunter’s catches were just wins one-on-one. Travis Hunter’s defense was one-on-one against wide receivers. He did it by playing 147 snaps of college football, at the highest level, against a ranked team, on the road in one-hundred-degree heat. Absurd.

“It’s absolutely absurd what this guy did on Saturday, and quite frankly, I don’t think it’s a question at all right now. The best non-quarterback player in college football so far in 2023 is Travis Hunter. Don’t at me. I don’t know what to tell you about it.”

Now the challenge for Travis Hunter becomes whether or not he can repeat his performance from last weekend. If he can, he’ll have a groundswell of support for a Heisman campaign, even more than he’s already getting.

Time will tell, but it seems as if Travis Hunter officially arrived on Saturday, and he’s not planning on going anywhere, anytime soon.