Desmond Howard touts Travis Hunter as 2024 Heisman Trophy frontrunner: 'It's Travis Hunter vs. the field'

Travis Hunter reminded everyone how special of a talent he is with how he opened his junior season at Colorado on Thursday. It was a performance that earned all the praise this morning from Desmond Howard.

Howard applauded Hunter’s game in the 31-26 win for the Buffaloes over North Dakota State during ‘First Take’ on Friday. He used words like phenomenal, incredible, and spectacular to describe the two-way athlete of the likes that college football hasn’t seen for some time now.

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“You look at Travis Hunter? It’s just – I mean he’s phenomenal,” said Howard. “I mean this guy is a once-in-a-generation talent that we haven’t seen in decades. To play offense and defense the way he plays is just incredible. To make those catches was just spectacular.”

“For him to play as many snaps as he plays at an extremely high level just speaks to the conditioning and then to his football IQ too.”

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Hunter started his year with his best outing yet as a collegiate receiver. He caught seven passes for 132 yards and three touchdowns. The yardage was the second-most of his time at Colorado while the trio of scores were a career-best. Each touchdown was then more incredible than the last with a 41-yard run to start, a contested toe-tap at the back of the end zone, and a special, acrobatic catch while falling away at the pylon.

That’s not even including the three tackles and coverage that Hunter had in his defensive snaps.

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This season is a day away from truly kicking off on August 31st. However, with that debut to this season, Howard already has Hunter in the lead to win The Heisman Trophy.

“I think that Travis Hunter right now is, like – he’s the frontrunner for the Heisman. There’s no doubt about that,” stated Howard. “To me, it’s Travis Hunter versus the field.”

Whether you believe it or not, Hunter is now in the running for that trophy in some sense based on the shifts since last night.

There’s obviously a lot of season to go for the entire sport, including Hunter and the Buffs, ahead of tomorrow. However, if that was just the start of what is to come this year for him, he could very well find himself at the ceremony in New York if not being the recipient of the award in December.

“This kid is unbelievable,” Howard said.