Talent Tracker: Travis Hunter should be No. 1 pick in 2025 NFL Draft, why Auburn still needs portal QB
Your weekly serving of college football roster acquisition thoughts — recruiting, transfer portal, you name it — from 247Sports Director of Scouting Andrew Ivins.
Why would anybody go before Travis Hunter in NFL Draft?
It’s a bird… It’s a plane… It’s Travis Hunter.
This past weekend, I passed on the quad-box view from my couch and drove to UCF to watch the Knights take on Colorado. I told myself I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about after the game, but deep down I knew that was a lie. Travis Hunter was going to be the story because Travis Hunter has always been the story. He’s Superman.
Back in March of 2021, I got a chance to scout Hunter for the first time up close and in person at a 7-on-7 tournament outside Atlanta. I was simply in awe. So much so that I quickly filed a story from an Uber proclaiming I thought Hunter had the potential to go down as an “all-time prospect” — you can read that here. Talk about underselling a player who might end up being selected No. 1 overall in the 2025 NFL Draft. To me he feels like the obvious pick over some hot and cold quarterbacks.
By now, most of America has seen Hunter play, and it doesn’t take a trained eye to know he’s a one-in-a-million talent who can do things others simply can’t. While there’s no question Hunter is special, there is no shortage of debate in the personnel world as to whether his ceiling is highest as a cornerback or a wide receiver on Sundays.
Here’s a thought: It doesn’t matter.
When we ranked Hunter as the No. 1 prospect in the 2022 recruiting cycle, we had the same questions that many NFL scouting departments have now. Can a perimeter playmaker really be the top player in the class? Can his wiry frame hold up when the physicality gets ramped up? Can he really make an impact on both sides of the ball when so few others have?
The answer is proving to be a resounding yes, and that’s why whichever organization finds itself with the top pick next April needs to not overthink it and seriously consider investing that asset in Hunter. A cornerback has never gone No. 1 before and a wide receiver hasn’t gone that high since Keyshawn Johnson back in 1996. But Hunter is both positions wrapped up in one. And if you’re somebody like, say, the Carolina Panthers or the Jacksonville Jaguars, and in desperate need of a franchise reinvention, Hunter might be the superior choice.
Sitting on press row in FBC Mortgage Stadium this past Saturday, there was no shortage of comments made about Hunter. My favorite came from a local reporter who proclaimed that the first defender almost never tackles Hunter after watching him juke a would-be tackler and dance his way up the field for a first down. That comment got me thinking.
From the jump, I have always viewed Hunter as more of a cornerback long term because of his ability to read and react with his length and speed, but I’m starting to believe he’s just too good of an offensive weapon to not have on the field at all times with his superb body control and top-flight ball skills.
Deion Sanders, one of the best defensive backs to ever do it, seems to agree. Hunter currently leads all Power Four players in snaps from a wide receiver alignment this season (232) and ranks in the top five at the FBS level in both receiving yards (561) and receiving touchdowns (six).
Of course, Hunter is getting it done on defense, too. He owns the second-highest coverage grade from Pro Football Focus among qualifying cornerbacks through the first five weeks of the season, with his NFL passer rating allowed (30.1) ranking 25th best among Power Four defenders.
Hunter simply has been elite in two completely different aspects of the game, which was also the case when he was in high school. A two-way regular at Collins Hill outside Atlanta, Hunter finished his prep career with 232 receptions for 3,963 yards and 48 touchdowns. He added 19 interceptions on defense and did all of that despite missing five games of his senior season due to injury.
The data and stats certainly paint the picture of a generational talent, but so does the eye test. To steal an observation from my colleague Cooper Petagna on The 105 earlier this week, Hunter is one of the few players whose film cut-up actually looks like an extended highlight reel. He’s just that good.
Quarterbacks will surely drive much of the conversation in the lead-up to the NFL Draft, but front offices should be lining up to draft Hunter. After all, he did it on both sides of the ball on Fridays. He’s doing it on both sides of the ball on Saturdays. Why can’t football’s version of Superman do it on both sides of the ball on Sundays?
Auburn scores Deuce Knight, but transfer QB still needed
One of the biggest recruiting sagas in recent memory came to an end Wednesday night when quarterback Deuce Knight announced he was officially switching his commitment from Notre Dame to Auburn.
On the surface, this looks like a major win for the folks on The Plains as quarterbacks Payton Thorne and Hank Brown have combined to throw a Power Four-worst nine interceptions this season. The Talent Tracker isn’t going to tell anyone to not roll Toomer’s Corner following the addition of Knight, but we are going to try and temper expectations a bit.
Knight is a lottery ticket with a monster payout, but one that’s going to need plenty of seasoning before he’s ready to go. After completing just 56.8% of his passes across his sophomore and junior seasons, Knight turned in favorable outings this offseason at both the Elite 11 Finals and Overtime’s OT7 Championship.
There was hope that Knight was going to take a major step forward as a senior, much like Florida’s DJ Lagway did a year ago in his rise to our No. 1 quarterback ranking, but a hamstring injury derailed things and has forced Knight to miss some time. He’s expected to return to action at some point in the near future, but it’s still hard to ignore the fact that he has a losing record as a starter and isn’t the most consistent with his ball placement.
The Tigers are more than likely going to give Knight a chance to compete for the starting spot next year as they search for an answer at quarterback, but it would be foolish for Hugh Freeze and his staff to again pass up on the opportunity to add a veteran signal caller via the transfer portal.
After all, it wasn’t too long ago that all the hype coming out of Auburn had to do with the freshman wide receiver class that was headlined by five-star Cam Coleman. But the “Freeze Four” hasn’t had a chance to break — or should we say thaw out — primarily because of the dismal play of Thorne and Brown.
If Freeze wants to make things work and keep those receivers happy, he needs to secure the services of a ready-to-play quarterback for 2025, with the thought that Knight and former four-star recruit Walker White, who appears to be taking a much-needed developmental year, can battle it out for the No. 1 gig the following year.
Traditional redshirts might be on life support
When Iowa travels to Ohio State on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS), one of the few true remaining player development programs will be on display. Of the 20 expected starters for the Hawkeyes signed out of high school, 16 of them redshirted their first year on campus. That could look like even more of an anomaly a few years from now with player movement and roster turnover at an all-time high.
Over the past week, nearly a dozen players have elected to shut things down and opt out of the season in hopes of preserving an extra year of eligibility they intend to use elsewhere. Given the current NCAA rules, which allow players to appear in up to four regular-season games and still declare a redshirt, it’s hard to fault student-athletes for taking advantage of the system. But don’t be surprised if schools get smart and start shying from redshirting their freshmen class.
Think about it. The odds of a school actually receiving that extra year of eligibility are getting smaller and smaller. Sure, there are certainly some cases where an incoming recruit just isn’t going to be ready to go from a physical standpoint, but the days of trying to squeeze the most out of a player might be numbered as the time and resources invested in that individual could very well end up benefiting another program.
Again, not every first-year player is going to be able to contribute right away, but as seasons progress and injuries mount, it might make more sense for a coaching staff to just break the glass and play the youth.
Keep an eye on the true freshmen at your favorite school this weekend. There are probably a handful of them who have hit or are approaching the four-game mark. It wasn’t too long ago you might have been campaigning for a redshirt. Now? Play ’em.
Sneaky-Good Commit of the Week
ATH Antavious Richardson to Notre Dame
Notre Dame has addressed plenty of different needs through high school recruiting under the direction of Marcus Freeman, but one area where the Irish have struggled to find a true game-wrecker is wide receiver. Antavious Richardson might change that.
One of the fastest prospects in the Peach State for the 2025 cycle, Richardson is a small-town, two-way athlete who reps at quarterback and linebacker. He has limited, if any, experience actually running routes and catching the football, but he has proven to be a dynamic mover who can produce explosive plays on scrambles or designed runs with his acceleration and agility.
After originally committing to Georgia State and then flipping to USF this past summer, multiple College Football Playoff contenders were working to get Richardson on campus. He has gone as low as 4.5 seconds in the 40-yard dash.
‘Freak’ of the Week
Texas A&M DL commit DJ Sanders
The Top247 for the class of 2025 will be updated next week, and one prospect who has made a serious case to shoot up the board is Texas A&M defensive line commit DJ Sanders.
A mountain of a human, Sanders looks like a near carbon copy of Michigan’s Kenneth Grant, who continues to dictate what opponents are able to do on offense. While the size hasn’t been third-party verified, Sanders is believed to be hovering around 6-foot-3, 330 pounds. That’s close to what Grant was coming out of high school, and the two have similar personal-best efforts in the shot put at the same stage: 57 feet for Sanders to go along with 57 feet, 3 inches for Grant.
Texas A&M has had no shortage of difference-makers up front in recent years, but Sanders gives Mike Elko a unique body type that can clog the drain in the middle.
