Measurements
Height: 6’0”Weight: 188Arm Length: 31.4’’Hands: 9.1’’
If it’s true, as many scouts believe, that Travis Hunter is clearly better as a cornerback than wide receiver, he must be a truly transcendent player on that side of the ball. Simply put, Hunter is one of, if not the most talented wide receiver prospects I’ve ever scouted.
Hunter ran an absurd 94% of his routes while lined up on the outside, and almost all of them were on the line of scrimmage as the X receiver. This is because he mostly practiced with the defense and attended defensive meetings, so they wanted him sticking with a single position on offense. They just happened to make it the most difficult of the receiver positions, and he absolutely dominated.
There are two main aspects of Hunter’s game that set him apart, even from other recent top prospects. The first is his work against zone coverage. It’s strikingly obvious how much his experience playing both ways has helped him as a receiver. He has such an advanced understanding of coverages which he uses to his advantage both in structure and out of structure. He always settles his initial route in open space, and when Shedeur Sanders breaks out of the pocket, Hunter always makes himself available. Not only does he understand the coverage, but he has out of this world processing skills as well. He takes in information so quickly, he’s able to constantly make adjustments based on what the defense does post-snap.
His defensive experience also comes into play against man coverage. Depending on the leverage his defender is playing with, Hunter knows exactly what would make their life difficult. He knows how to attack angles, manipulate his route stems, change his tempo, and more. And as I said before, he doesn’t just have a plan before the snap and execute it. He can react and respond to his defender in the blink of an eye. At the line of scrimmage, he has a wide variety of footwork techniques that he executes with precision, and is able to chain these moves together on the fly. He has both short area burst to win early, and long speed to win late.
The other crown jewel of Hunter’s game is the way he tracks the football. Some of the downfield catches he makes are truly remarkable. There was one play against UCF that perfectly encapsulates this skill and had my jaw on the floor. Hunter is running a deep post, turns to find the ball, tracks it before it reaches its apex, and realizes it’s going to be difficult to catch up to. So he puts his head down and runs full speed, before finding the ball again and putting out his hands at the last moment. Special stuff. Once he tracks the football, he’s excellent at finishing through contact at the catch point. He almost always puts his body in the right position to make contested catches. He’s one of the most competitive players at the catch point that I’ve ever seen. He takes some absolutely nasty shots but will hang onto the ball as if his life depends on it.
Finally, Hunter also has the capacity to turn lemons into lemonade on designed touches. He has an excellent feel for pursuit angles, and his movement skills are elite. He creates so many big plays with his acceleration and vision in the open field.
Despite how much I’m gushing over Hunter, he does still have a few small areas of weakness. His breaks are sometimes sloppy, and he can drift at the top of routes. He’s also one of the biggest freelancers I’ve ever seen at the position. By that I mean, if he knows his route isn’t going to get open, he’ll almost always adjust it to avoid coverage. This is part of what makes him special, but it can also throw off the spacing and lead to muddy pictures for the quarterback. As a ball carrier, ...
