Whichever team drafts Travis Hunter will face a crucial question on where to play the two-way phenom.
Hunter is excelling as both a wide receiver and cornerback during his junior year. The Heisman candidate has 561 receiving yards and six touchdowns on offense and two interceptions on the other end. Deion Sanders knows Hunter better than most observers, but the Colorado head coach doesn’t want to help sway his star player’s future.
During an appearance on the Nightcap podcast, Chad Johnson prefaced a question by telling Sanders that he recently argued with co-host Shannon Sharpe about Hunter’s best position. Johnson naturally leaned toward his former spot, wide receiver.
Sanders cut off Johnson before he could even finish the question.
“I ain’t telling ya nothing,” Sanders said. “I’m treating you like a pro scout. You’re gonna have to find out on your own. I know the answer.”
Sanders suggested that Johnson has simply seen Hunter play more reps at wide receiver than cornerback. Coach Prime then argued that an NFL coach will harbor some remorse regardless of his choice if he limits the likely first-round pick to one position.
“Every week, we got a ton of scouts coming to practice, and they ask me that question,” Sanders said. “What do I think he is? I say, I’ll tell you what. If you put him on defense and don’t let him play offense in the pros, you’ll look crazy because you’re not moving the ball down the field and your best receiver is over there on the defensive side of the ball. The fans are gonna start booing, and they’re gonna start saying, ‘Put Travis in.’
“Now, if you put it vice versa. OK, now he’s on offense and he’s lighting it up and your cornerback is getting killed … You’re gonna look like a fool as a head coach. So you got to allow him to be who he is.”
Sanders insisted that Hunter’s two-way skills are for real. He’s grateful that he’s “let him be him.”
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