Deion Sanders sends strong message on Travis Hunter, opens up on fishing trips
Deion Sanders loves his fishing trips with Travis Hunter, but it goes beyond that -- Coach Prime loves who the No. 1 overall Class of 2022 recruit is as a person, and he told reporters that on a birthday press conference on August 9.
“He’s a good human being, he’s not smoking, not drinking, not outside whoring, not doing crazy things,” Sanders said at CU's Media Day (h/t On SI). “He’s got one of the highest GPAs on the team, he’s a great human being, and he can play, his character is second to none. That’s why I don’t mind fishing with him. And he coming to Texas. And we’re not talking about fishing on the boat, although we talk junk to each other all the time, but we’re talking about life.
"We’re talking about the next move. We talk about land acquisition. We’re talking about so many different things of life, fathering, you know, loving, how the family plays a role in all of this. So it’s just a delight to have caught him coming straight out of high school.”
Some of what Sanders said certainly comes off as continued pettiness toward Cormani McClain, who reportedly did some of the things Coach Prime mentioned. It's unclear who else might have been part of that stray.
Either way, it's clear Sanders loves Hunter for living a clean-cut, controversy-free lifestyle.
Robert Livingston also loves Travis Hunter's character
Hunter has impressed Coach Prime and first-year defensive coordinator Robert Livingston all the same. Livingston also sang Hunter's praises, calling him a "unicorn."
“I think Travis could do anything he wants to do," Livingston said (h/t Essentially Sports). "I talked about it, I think Travis is a unicorn. We had a spring academic meeting, Travis goes up there, is a 4.0 student, Travis, takes every play in practice. I think Travis can do anything.
"So yeah, I don’t want to put bulletin (board material) on his back or anything like that. But yeah, I think Travis can do just about anything.”
Hunter is going to be an easy personality fit on whichever NFL franchise drafts him. His destination probably isn't under as much scrutiny from Coach Prime as Shedeur's, though Deion did group him in the triad (with Shedeur and Shilo) that was "going to be an Eli" if drafted to a non-preferred team.