Greg McElroy addresses death threats toward Colorado State’s Henry Blackburn

During Colorado‘s win over Colorado State, star player Travis Hunter was knocked out of the game with a lacerated liver. That injury came on a late hit from Colorado State’s Henry Blackburn, which many fans saw as a dirty hit. In response, Blackburn has gotten a lot of hate, including death threats, according to the CSU AD.

On his show Always College Football, analyst Greg McElroy reacted to those death threats against Henry Blackburn and shared his thoughts on the situation.

“I really hate death threats for players, and we see them all the time,” McElroy said. “It’s unfortunate. Everyone has a Twitter, has a voice. Basically, when you have a Twitter, you have social media, everyone in the world has your cell phone number and they can just send you messages however they want, and unfortunately, on the receiving end of some death threats this week is Henry Blackburn.”

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The play in question came in the first half of Colorado’s win over Colorado State. Hunter was running up the field and coming to a stop after the pass fell incomplete. Blackburn, after the play took a hard shot to Hunter’s torso, injuring him.

“He, obviously, was involved in the late hit to Travis Hunter, the outstanding two-way player for Colorado. The Colorado State University Police Department and local authorities have looked into the threats, and it’s troubling.”

Besides the overreaction from fans to harass Henry Blackburn, Greg McElroy wondered if he even considered the hit dirty or just late.

“It’s really troubling because I watched that play and a lot of people have said it was a dirty play and it was this. I watched that play, and to me, was the hit late? Absolutely. Absolutely the hit was late. He arrived late, he delivered the hit late. But at the same time, I didn’t feel like it was with malicious intent. He didn’t go up and target Travis Hunter in the head or neck area. He didn’t go low on Travis Hunter and try to take his legs out. Like he just tried to body him up and force the incompletion, and while it was late maybe he lost track of the ball because there was a defender between him and Travis Hunter,” McElroy said.

“I’m not excusing the play. It deserved to be flagged, but some people saying he should get kicked off the team, he should get kicked out of the university, in some ways he should have death threats hurled his way, that’s wrong. That’s not right.”

McElroy also pointed to the response from Colorado in response to the hit. Neither head coach Deion Sanders nor Travis Hunter himself are publicly angry at Henry Blackburn for the play.

“Even Deion Sanders went out and here was his quote, ‘Henry Blackburn is a good player who played a phenomenal game. He made a tremendous hit on Travis on the sideline – you can call it dirty, you can call it he was just playing the game of football – but whatever it was, it does not constitute that he should be receiving death threats.’ That’s from Deion Sanders,” McElroy said.

“Take it one step further, here’s from Travis Hunter himself, quote, ‘It’s football at the end of the day, that stuff happens.'”

Ultimately, regardless of how someone views the play or who they’re rooting for, the death threats have clearly crossed a line and should never have happened.

“There’s no place in our sport for death threats under any circumstances. It was a bang-bang play. Was it late? Absolutely. It was late. It deserved to be flagged, but I don’t believe there was any malicious intent based on how I saw the ball dropping and the hit being delivered. So, just take it easy with that stuff, man. He’s just trying to make a play. Big game. Emotional game. The fact that Travis Hunter got hurt is terrible. I hate it. I wish he was there, not just for him, but for Colorado and for all of college football,” McElroy said.

“But there’s no place in the sport for death threats. So, just think twice before you press send if you’re going to be hurling things in Henry Blackburn’s direction, or any player for that matter.”