His Former High School Coaches Weigh In
With the 2025 NFL draft looming, Travis Hunter will be turning pro. While it’s not exactly clear which spot Hunter will land in, he’ll likely be one of the top three picks.
However, the big question isn’t where he will be drafted or who will take him. Whichever NFL team is fortunate enough to call Hunter’s name at the draft in a few weeks will have a player many consider to be the greatest college football player to ever enter the NFL.
No, the real question is this: Will Travis Hunter play both offense and defense in the NFL?
While it is rare for an NFL player to play on both offense and defense, Hunter is a rare talent. He is the only player in the history of college football to be awarded both the Chuck Bednarik Award, which is given to college football’s best defensive player each year, and the Biletnikoff Award, which is awarded annually to the nation’s top college football receiver.
Hunter was also named the consensus 2024 National Player of the Year, The Associated Press College Football Player of the Year, and the 2024 Sporting News College Football Player of the Year. He won the 2024 Walter Camp Award and became the first repeat winner of the Paul Hornung Award as the nation’s most versatile player.
Despite playing just two seasons for the University of Colorado, Hunter is the most decorated player in the Buffaloes’ history.
He is also the most decorated non-quarterback in NCAA history.
Over the course of his football career, beginning with Collins Hill High School and extending into college at Jackson State University and Colorado, Hunter has consistently played on both offense and defense, rarely coming off the field.
You don’t become the first ever player in college football history to receive awards for being the best player on both sides of the ball by just lining up. Hunter excelled at it.
In 2024, he played 688 snaps on defense and 672 snaps on offense for the Buffaloes. Lining up as a wideout for Colorado, he finished this past season with 96 receptions for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns. As a cornerback, which is considered to be perhaps the toughest position on the field, he came away with four interceptions and 11 pass breakups.
At the time of writing, Hunter has just been announced as a semifinalist for the AAU Sullivan Award, an honor that recognizes the most exceptional athlete in collegiate or olympic-level sports in the U.S.
To better understand if Travis Hunter would best work out as an offensive player, defensive player, or both in the NFL, I spoke with a few of the coaches who worked closely with him in high school.
Drew Swick, who is the current head football coach at Collins Hill High School, was the team’s defensive coordinator and served as one of Hunter’s defensive back position coaches.
“I started working with Travis when I became the defensive coordinator and he was a junior,” Swick said.
That year is when Hunter really began to set himself apart from the rest, according to Swick.
“The thing I noticed was he made everyone around him so much better,” Swick said. “He was able to put guys in the right places on the field. Even though he was lined up at corner, he would move guys around… like having a coach on the field.”
On offense is where Swick remembers Hunter doing his best work.
“I just remember him making these catches that were impossible,” Swick said.
Swick described a catch Hunter made in a game versus Graham-Kapowsin High School (Washington) in the GEICO State Champions Bowl Series in Las Vegas following Collins Hill’s 2021 state title win over Milton.
“We threw a fourth-down pass to Hunter in double coverage, but he went up above both defenders, made the catch, came down on one leg, and he’s still short of the end zone, so he spins around and lunges for the endzone and scores,” Swick said. “I could not believe he caught the ball. I had to watch it on film the next day just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.”
That left an impression on Swick.
“Although I am a defensive guy, I really believe Travis will be a better wide receiver in the NFL,” Swick said.
Former Collins Hill head football coach Lenny Gregory led the Eagles to their first ever state championship in 2021 and coached Hunter for all four years of high school.
Gregory, who was recently announced as the new head football coach for Commerce High School in Commerce, Georgia, offered up an explanation on how Hunter may be one of the rare players to play on both offense and defense in professional football.
“As talented as Travis is, the thing that I noticed about him most of all was his endurance,” Gregory said. “He’s the only player I have ever coached that never gets tired. He has more ‘wind’ than any player I have ever coached. Travis was playing 150 snaps per game. That’s just next-level stuff.”
Gregory remembers the first conditioning drill he had with Travis.
“He was just this skinny kid who showed up to do the conditioning drills with the veteran players,” Gregory said. “I asked him if he could pass the drill, and he said, ‘No problem, Coach.’ I thought to myself, ‘He’s never going to make it,’ because at that time he had never worked out with us. Well, he went out and just embarrassed the seniors, everyone.”
Does Gregory think Travis Hunter can play both offense and defense in the NFL?
“He is equally good as a receiver as a defensive back,” Gregory said. “He does things that are not normal. I’ll tell you that.”
Todd Wofford worked with Hunter at Collins Hill as a wide receivers coach and as the passing game coordinator during Hunter’s junior and senior seasons.
Wofford remembers meeting Hunter for the first time. It wasn’t necessarily love at first sight, although that changed quickly.
“I remember Coach Gregory telling me about this young man who was going to be the greatest high school player I had ever seen,” Wofford said. “I thought, ‘I got to go see this kid.’ Coach told me he (Hunter) was in the weight room, so I went in looking for the most physically imposing looking young player in the room. I went up to one of the coaches and asked where Travis Hunter was. He pointed at a young man standing over in the corner.”
It was not what Wofford was expecting to see.
“I saw a young, skinny kid,” Wofford said. “I thought, ‘This kid is going to break in half the first time he gets hit.’”
That was during the summer before the 2020 season. When practice started, Wofford saw just how wrong he was.
“We started practicing, and I quickly saw what the coach was talking about,” Wofford said. “He (Hunter) was making plays I had never seen.
“He practiced making one-handed catches, and it wasn’t showing out. He was trying to make the toughest catches he could so that during the games it would be natural for him, and that’s exactly what happened.”
Wofford talked about whether Hunter is better at offense or defense.
“On defense, when the ball is in the air, the chances are better than 50-50 that Travis will get the ball in his hands,” Wofford said. “He’ll get to the ball no matter where he is on the field.
“I told him in high school that one day he would wind up playing offense more than defense because coaches are going to want the ball in his hands making plays and scoring points. That’s what it’s going to come down to for Travis.”
Dante Williams, who is the current head football coach at Archer High School in Lawrenceville, Georgia, served as Collins Hill’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2019 to 2021, including during the Eagles’ state title season.
Williams recalls his earliest memories of Hunter.
“He was a 15-year-old sophomore, and his natural position was cornerback,” Williams said. “He wanted to be just like Deion (Sanders). PrimeTime was his idol. His biggest attribute was his eye-hand coordination and his body control. Everything was just so natural for him, the whole locomotion of his body. That skill set gave him an advantage at receiver, being able to go up and over and around defenders to make these unbelievable catches.
“All of us on the coaching staff would just get together and ask each other, ‘What are we looking at?’”
Williams said he thinks Hunter will play offense in the NFL.
“The things he does as a receiver are mind blowing, which is why I think whomever takes him (in the NFL) will make him a receiver,” Williams said.
Here’s a final look back at Hunter’s high school stats as a reminder of what he is capable of.
In 2019, he played his first full season on varsity as a sophomore. He had 49 receptions for 919 yards and 12 TDS, and he led Gwinnett County with seven interceptions.
Hunter’s junior season, 2020, was his best year of high school football. He had 137 receptions for 1,746 yards and 24 TDs. He also had eight interceptions.
In 2021, Hunter’s senior season of high school football, he had 85 receptions for 1,284 yards and 12 TDs. He also had four interceptions and two fumble recoveries.
Hunter set the Georgia high school state record for most career touchdown receptions with 48. His 137 receptions in 2020 is also a state record. His 3,949 career receiving yards ranks him at fourth all-time in state history.
His high school coaches all agree: Travis Hunter will likely play only wide receiver in the NFL
Regardless, as Williams said about the man who is widely regarded by many as the best college football player in history and who could become one of the greatest to ever play in the NFL: “Travis wasn’t the biggest, the fastest, or the strongest. He was just the best.”
