BOULDER — Jon Cooper figured he was out of the unicorn hunting game when Travis Hunter picked off his heart and ran it all the way back to 1981.
“Roy Green was an outstanding nickel safety for the Cardinals,” Cooper, the longtime pro scout, associate GM and senior draft analyst with Ourlads.com, told me recently. “And went both ways before they decided he was too valuable as a receiver to do anything but (play offense).”
Cooper was at a St. Louis Cardinals game 43 years ago when Green, a speedy return ace who’d recently been turned into a two-way threat at wideout and defensive back, became the first NFL player since 1957 to intercept a pass and catch another in the same game.
“(Green) wasn’t as big as (CU football coach) Deion (Sanders) or Hunter,” the scout sighed. “He only did it for a season, or a season-and-a-half.”
With an old Jim Hart and a young Neil Lomax at quarterback, then-Cards coach Jim Hanifan didn’t mess around when it came to what side of the ball mattered more. Once the coaching staff saw Green, a former track star, rack up 708 receiving yards and lead the Redbirds in touchdown catches (four) while re-learning the position on the fly in 1981, his days as an NFL defensive back were numbered.
The whole experiment worked so well, Roy moved to offense full-time starting in 1982, eventually leading the NFL in touchdown catches in ’83 and in receiving yards in ’84, notching Pro Bowl berths in both seasons.
“There are certain guys you want to throw to, guys you know will hang on to the ball,” Hart told Sports Illustrated in December 1981. “Roy’s one of those guys.”
Hart might as well be describing No. 12, whose superhuman combination of hand-eye coordination, ball skills, agility and IQ have Buffs football alums already calling him the best football player to ever don CU black and gold.
“He’s got a great head on his shoulder as well. He’s tough. He’s smart,” Dave Syvertsen, Ourlads’ senior draft analyst and scout, said of Hunter, the cornerback/wide receiver whose 5-2 Buffs host 5-2 Cincinnati on Saturday night at Folsom Field. “I think he’s got great contest-catch numbers, too.
“Great possession and ball skills. He has superstar potential.”
Syvertsen grades the junior out as a first-rounder at both wideout and cornerback in the ’25 NFL draft. But like Cooper, he has a feeling front offices will look to pigeonhole Hunter into one side of the ball in order to preserve his long-term health.
And like Roy Green two generations ago, they expect that side to be offense — with a sprinkling of defensive appearances, primarily as a nickel back or a slot corner, peppered in.
“I think he could be a great corner,” Cooper said. “That said, there’s something to be said for guys playing some slot corner and also playing on offense. Deion did it himself.
“I think it’s going to depend on the team. I could see him playing in sub packages on defense, because he’s so skilled … eventually, I think, he will be one or the other. I think receiver is probably where he can make the biggest impact long-term. The jury might be out as to whether he can go two ways initially or one way all the time. Unique, unique player.”
The afternoon after CU hosts the Bearcats, the Carolina Panthers, 1-6 and going nowhere fast, visit the Broncos (4-3) at Empower Field. Tankathon.com’s 2025 NFL mock draft as of Tuesday afternoon pegged Hunter going to the Patriots with the No. 1 overall pick and Buffs quarterback Shedeur Sanders being taken by Carolina with the second selection. Longtime ESPN draftnik Mel Kiper recently ranked Hunter as the No. 1 overall pick on his big board.
For a team that needs everything, including marketable, charismatic stars, Hunter ticks every box. That said, even Buffs icons such as Michael Westbrook, the greatest wideout in CU history, would suggest to Hunter that he lean on offense primarily at the next level.
“I would use him as a wide receiver,” Westbrook told me, echoing the scouts’ sentiments. “I would sparingly put him in (with) nickel packages, dime packages. Anytime they’ve got four wideouts on the field, Travis goes in.”
Defense may win championships, but touchdowns pay the bills. Unlike in Green’s era, limitation on contact with receivers, combined with rules that discourage quarterback hits, have made the NFL more of a passing league than ever.
“(He’s) a top-5 pick,” Cooper said. “Body control, speed. And he’s a great corner. I could see where if a team wanted to use those skills, they could find a way. At least initially.”
As Hunter already knows full well, the league is about making business decisions — and the money for receivers is better than the market for cornerbacks. According to Spotrac.com, the top 6 highest-paid NFL wideouts sport an average cap hit of $25.7 million for 2024, while the top five highest-paid NFL corners average a $19.1 million cap hit.
“If he wanted to become a legit No. 1 receiver on a team, (that franchise) might not want a lot of defensive snaps,” Cooper said. “Even six or seven snaps a game (on defense) might not fit in today’s NFL.”
Some coaching staff may think Hunter is too valuable a receiver to risk on defense, or too valuable a defender to risk getting pummeled on pass routes. Either way, the fare for unicorn rides is about to go up.
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