JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Jaguars have an early plan for how they want to use Travis Hunter, but they’re not locked into anything concrete.
The Jaguars are sure, however, what they want their plan to produce: a duplication of what Hunter was able to do at Colorado.
“We have to be fluid,” Jaguars first-year head coach Liam Coen said Friday at a news conference introducing Hunter. “We have it laid out. But we also have to have the ability to be agile and be fluid on specific days. If we don’t feel like he got enough work on one side of the ball the previous day, then we need to be able to move forward and get him those reps the next day.
“Both Camp [defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile] and I and Grant [offensive coordinator Grant Udinski] are all on the same page about, ‘Hey, how is this thing going to work? What do we want this to look like?’ We want it to look like what it looked like at Colorado, and that would be pretty good for us.”
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Without question, because Hunter’s 2024 season at Colorado was one of the most impressive in NCAA history. Hunter had 1,258 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns to go along with four interceptions on defense while averaging 113.9 snaps per game.
The Jaguars plan to start Hunter on offense and give him a package on defense, but they’re not yet sure whether that means 45 snaps on each side of the ball, 75% on offense and 25% on defense, or any other breakdown.
It’ll be a while before they can get there because it depends on how quickly Hunter can learn the offense and defense, his conditioning and stamina, and how quickly his body can rebound each week.
The team has had preliminary discussions with the athletic training staff, the equipment staff, and the nutritionists about that, but it’s largely going to be a wait-and-see approach. The Jaguars also will have difficulty determining how much rest Hunter would need each week if the plan is to play close to triple-digit snaps.
“There’s a lot of layers to that,” Jaguars general manager James Gladstone said. “Certainly, we have to operate within all measures in compliance with league mandates, but at the same time, yeah, there’s a certain level of recovery and preparation in order to take on the workload that he’s about to sort of take on.
“Again, it’s got a lot of layers to the sports science front and making sure we’re operating on all cylinders.”
Hunter was consistent in saying he wants to play both ways, and he’d like to play every snap in every game every week. That there’s even a possibility of Hunter being able to pull that off — and play at a high level on both sides of the ball — is the reason the Jaguars traded up from No. 5 to No. 2 to get draft him Thursday.
On Friday, Gladstone called the move a statement for the franchise, one day after he said Hunter has the ability to alter the sport.
With immense praise and the Jaguars’ trade for him — which included this year’s second- and fourth-round picks, along with next year’s first-round pick — Hunter is even more determined to validate the team’s decision.
“It’s definitely a lot of motivation,” Hunter said. “They sacrificed a lot to get me. That means they believe in me. That just validates that I need to go ahead and just do my job.”
And as for potentially being someone who can change the direction of a franchise that hasn’t made back-to-back playoff appearances since 1996-99 — something that Gladstone said Hunter has the qualities to do — Hunter isn’t even thinking about that.
“I’m going to come out and do my job,” he said. “I’m not going to say I’m going to change anything. I don’t want to set the expectation too high. I’m just going to come in and do my job, and hopefully we change the atmosphere.”
On both sides of the ball.
