Travis Hunter's NFL position? Focus on defense, says Charles Woodson

Travis Hunter proved a point brilliantly. Keep telling the best player in college football what he can’t do. He was not expected to survive, let alone thrive, in the face of unbearable demands while playing two positions full-time.

At least that’s the common opinion.

And look at him now: The Colorado Buffaloes’ star wide receiver and cornerback is the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night.

As the NFL approaches, Hunter certainly can’t expect to excel at either position at the next level.

Can he?

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“I don’t want to say what the man can’t do,” Pro Football Hall of Famer Charles Woodson told USA TODAY Sports. “We just watched him do it in college.

“I would rather he didn’t. If I were an NFL team and had a guy as talented as him, I would let him play defense. But I would have a few packages for him on offense. He is too talented a player not to be used on offense at all. But I wouldn’t use him full-time on offense and defense. In the NFL, just in terms of the physical nature of the game, the guys’ bodies are a lot more mature, there’s a different speed of play just because the guys are a lot better at all levels of the game.

“So I wouldn’t try to play him every snap, but I would put him out there; I would play him a few snaps on offense.”

Woodson, who played 18 seasons in the NFL as a defensive back and now serves as a studio analyst for Fox Sports, is as credible as anyone when it comes to Hunter’s accomplishments and assessing the enormous prospects for his NFL future.

On his way to winning the Heisman Trophy in 1997, Woodson was the standout cornerback who tried out as a wide receiver at Michigan. During his final two seasons with the Wolverines, Woodson caught 24 passes and logged 6 rushing attempts.

The comparison ends when you consider that while Woodson was an incredible athlete, he was only a part-timer on offense. That’s one reason he’s so impressed with Hunter, who averaged 113 snaps per game – with a 50-50 offense-to-defense ratio – helping Colorado (9-3) earn a spot in the upcoming Alamo To secure the bowl.

A big-play receiver, Hunter caught 92 passes for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns this season.

As a shutdown corner, he snagged four interceptions, tallied 11 pass breakups and had a crucial, game-winning forced fumble.

“You watch a game and they leave the field on defense, and everyone on defense goes to the sideline, and they’re in the offensive group getting ready to line up and go on offense,” said Woodson. “So very impressed with what he’s done. Travis has been taking care of himself and making sure he’s ready to play every week.”

Still, such a dual role would be a bit too much to expect in the NFL. Even for the 21-year-old Hunter, he is considered the most gifted athlete available for April’s NFL Draft and is projected as a top-five pick. But after Hunter (6-1, 185) convinced his college coach, Deion Sanders, to allow him to play both ways — first at Jackson State, then the last two seasons at Colorado — he insisted that he wants to continue playing both ways in the NFL.

It will be a hard sell – at least when considering full-time positions in both positions.

Two senior talent evaluators for NFL teams told USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity that they see Hunter as a cornerback who could be used to a lesser extent as a wide receiver – essentially echoing Woodson’s views. The team leaders did not want to be identified due to the proprietary elements associated with personnel reviews.

“I see him as a cornerback who can get you some wide receiver snaps,” said the personnel director of one NFL team. “I think he could play wide receiver at his primary position, but he’s more valuable to me as a cornerback because he could have a big impact there.”

In other words, a supply-demand equation works here. It is much harder for NFL teams to acquire an elite cornerback than an elite receiver.

“He has great upside as a cornerback,” one NFL general manager said. “And wide receivers are almost everywhere now, if that makes sense.”

Then there’s just the thought of the requirements Hunter would have to meet to excel at two positions. This season, Hunter has logged 688 snaps on defense and 672 plays on offense.

It should be noted: the line in the sand is drawn for Hunter and his visions of going both ways as a full-time player at the next level.

As the GM put it, “I can’t imagine how he manages to play more than 100 snaps per game for 17 weeks in the NFL.”

The personnel director agrees: “I think playing both ways in the NFL would be too much in terms of the playbook, the coverages, the adjustments, the situation and all of those things.”

Woodson, who was drafted fourth overall by the Oakland Raiders in 1998, chuckled when asked if he could imagine playing both ways in the NFL. Even just a little.

“I wish I could have played more snaps on offense in the NFL,” he said.

In the early years of his NFL career, Woodson played a handful of snaps on offense. It’s not even a footnote on his illustrious NFL resume, which includes a Super Bowl championship with the Green Bay Packers, eight All-Pro selections, Defensive Player of the Year honors and a share of the league’s record 13 defensive tackles touchdown returns of his career. In the 1999 and 2000 seasons, Woodson caught two passes for 27 yards and ran once for minus-3 yards.

“I always begged Jon Gruden to get me involved more on offense,” Woodson recalled, referring to his Raiders coach. “I don’t know if it was him and he just didn’t want to do it. I don’t know if it was Al (Davis). I would have liked to have been willing to play more on offense.”

While playing at Michigan, Woodson was much more receptive to this suggestion from coach Lloyd Carr after starting receivers Amani Toomer and Mercury Hayes completed their college eligibility with the 1995 season.

“We lost those big guys after my first year at Mercury and Amani,” Woodson reflected. “I went to Lloyd and said, ‘Hey, man, I can play a little offense too.’ That’s how it started. Still, I only played a handful on offense.

“But for Travis, he just kept that high school mentality through college.”

As Woodson pointed out, it’s typical of many elite high school players – in Hunter’s case at Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, GA; for Woodson at Ross High School in Fremont, Ohio – to play both ways before determining a position to transition to the college level.

But when Hunter, one of the top recruits in the country, made it clear that he intended to play both ways in college, only Sanders, aka “Coach Prime,” among the many college coaches he encountered during the process, agreed , to this possibility.

Sanders, who once doubled as the NFL’s top cornerback and kick returner while playing as an outfielder in Major League Baseball, undoubtedly has a different perspective than most of his coaching colleagues. And he’s the Hall of Famer who played a number of wide receivers during his 14-year NFL career – most notably with the Dallas Cowboys in 1996, when he caught 36 passes for 475 yards and 47 receptions in their Super Bowl 30 win Yards scored against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

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