Shedeur Sanders’ Ridiculous Snub Prompts Travis Hunter to Call Out NCAA’s Blatant Double Standard

College football is a very novel and atypical microcosm of the sports world. It almost stands by itself in how it is adjudicated. Whether you’re a team or an individual, your fate lies in the hands of other people as much as your own. Other sports like the NFL are arbitrary- If you have the best numbers, you’re considered the best. CFB is more nuanced, and you’re often at the mercy of a committee’s decree. Teams like the Miami Hurricanes learnt that this week. However, players fall victim to this too.

Shedeur Sanders is unequivocally the best quarterback in CFB. His peers concur with this, and his adversaries concur with this. Even the media and scouts do. Yet, he’s not up for the title of the best player, i.e. the Heisman trophy. Not even in the reckoning at all. This bemuses his teammate and front-runner Travis Hunter as much as anybody.

On his namesake YouTube show, Travis Hunter discussed the apparent snub of Shedeur from Heisman contention. He asked rhetorical questions that are resounding when you really reflect upon them. “How can you be the top pick, the top quarterback pick, in the NFL Draft, but you’re not even considered to be in the Heisman race? Like how does that even work? How does that even make sense? That makes no sense”, he said. He proceeded to throw some shade on the powers that be.

Travis not-so-subtly jabbed at the people who vote for this accolade and other ones across CFB. He said, “ He’s also a quarterback. Which the Heisman normally goes to. [A head-scratcher,] just like I ain’t win the Jim Thorpe.” Travis Hunter has been very vocal about his omission from the finalists’ shortlist for the Jim Thorpe Award for the best DB in the country.

The “normally goes to a QB” angle is telling, too. Since 2010, merely two non-quarterbacks have won the award. It is an ode to Travis and his closest rival in the race, Ashton Jeanty, that they are breaking through this rather prejudicial modern tradition. However, all the other contenders are still QBs. This begs the question- Does Shedeur actually belong at that ceremony in New York, or is this just a friend being a friend?

The case for Shedeur Sanders’ Heisman campaign is scarred by one facet

Shedeur Sanders has been a revelation for Colorado. Despite the season being blemished by them falling short of the playoffs, his individual escapades are undeniable. Let alone just thwarting partisan allegations of nepotism. He’s won over the country in the process of putting up some gaudy, unparalleled numbers.

Shedeur is no.1 in the country in completion rate, 2nd in TDs thrown, 3rd in yardage through the air and 5th in QB rating. Let’s put that into perspective and reinforce his argument. No other signal-caller is even in the top 10 of all four of those categories. While Shedeur is in the top 5 at the very least. Add to this the fervor and fanfare surrounding Shedeur Sanders, which inadvertently plays a part in the selection process as much as the voters deny this. It does appear as if the voters just didn’t want to acknowledge two players from non-playoff Colorado. Well, a silver lining is that at least Shedeur’s draft stock is still in line with his performances.

To sum up this very tangible notion that Shedeur has been incorrectly avoided, Travis put it best. “Guess what? They’re all gonna be mad because he’s still gonna be there.[If] I get invited, He get invited. No matter if they didn’t invite him.[If] I walk on that stage, he might walk on that stage. So, at the end of the day, we both won.” The ceremony takes place on December 14th.