The college football offseason is not only a great time to look ahead, but it’s also a great time to do some reflection. In the latest episode of my podcast, I did a little reflection thanks to a mailbag question. A fan named Roy L asked me which player had the best performance in a game that I’ve called.
Honestly, that’s such a difficult question to answer. I can’t pick just one because there have been so many incredible performances. So, I’m going to share my top five individual performances I’ve ever called instead. Throughout this week, I’ll go one by one through my top five, in descending order.
I have a pair of honorable mentions that I want to give shout-outs to. Kyler Murray in the 2018 Red River Showdown was phenomenal. Texas won that game, but the former Oklahoma quarterback had a run down the sideline in that game that’s still probably the singular best play I’ve ever seen.
The other honorable mention I had was Ohio State quarterback JT Barrett’s comeback performance against Penn State in 2017. If you remember, Saquon Barkley took the opening kickoff for a touchdown, but Barrett was incredible in that game. I just couldn’t find a spot for him on that list.
Here’s the full list to this point:
5. Ohio State WR Marvin Harrison Jr. & Edge JT Tuimoloau @ Penn State (2022)
4. Michigan edge Aidan Hutchinson vs. Ohio State (2021)
3. Oklahoma QB Baker Mayfield vs. Oklahoma State (2017)
Now, onto No. 2, which was a game that introduced the college football world to an iconic player.
You’ve got to understand the hype going into this game surrounding Deion Sanders and Travis Hunter. This was their first game at Colorado, and I remember pounding the table in conversations with FOX Sports executives that we needed to select this game early in the Big 12 TV draft. I think I told them that this should be the second game taken in the draft that year, behind Red River.
They were surprised, but I knew the hype train with Colorado was real and everyone wanted to watch to see what Coach Prime would look like. Colorado was also taking on the previous season’s runner-up in TCU and I thought it’d be better to have the Buffaloes on our air earlier rather than later.
That game wound up being a wild one. There was some great football, while the hype surrounding Sanders and Hunter manifested. We had heard all these things about whether Hunter could play both ways at Colorado, especially as it felt like 130 degrees on the field in Fort Worth that day.
Hunter went out there and played a mind-boggling 152 snaps in that heat, which was incredible. From that day, moving forward, I knew Hunter was a star and arguably the best player in college football. He had 11 receptions for 119 yards on offense, which is difficult to do in most circumstances.
Defensively, Hunter had one of the greatest interceptions I’ve ever seen. In the red zone, Hunter came off his man in coverage and dove in front of the intended receiver in the flat to make the grab. What you won’t see is that earlier in that series, Hunter ran down and tackled the TCU running back on a 74-yard run.
Travis Hunter showed off his two-way prowess in Colorado’s win over TCU in 2023. (Photo by Andy Cross/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
In the first half, Hunter and Sanders actually failed to connect on a pass in the end zone. Sanders gave a great pre-halftime interview with Jenny Taft, telling her “We missed on two deep balls. [If] he gets those two deep balls, the Heisman is at his crib chillin’ right now.”
That line epitomized Sanders’ swag and the swag of the Colorado program. Colorado won that game, 45-42, but that year didn’t go how they wanted it to go. The Buffs went 4-8, with Hunter missing some time due to injury later in the year. He wound up winning the Heisman a year later, though.
Joel Klatt is FOX Sports’ lead college football game analyst and the host of the podcast “The Joel Klatt Show.” Follow him at @joelklatt and subscribe to the “Joel Klatt Show” on YouTube.
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