One of the loudest and most personal brand-focused players in NFL history should not have become a successful college football coach yet somehow Deion Sanders has turned Jackson State into the center of the college football universe.
THE NATION’S NUMBER ONE RECRUIT TRAVIS HUNTER JUST MADE HISTORY!!!!!!!! JACKSON STATE!!!!!!!!! @DeionSanders @JacksonStateU pic.twitter.com/WOXdqj2auy
— Maria Martin (@Ria_Martin) December 15, 2021
This week, Deion Sanders stole the no. 1 high school cornerback, Travis Hunter, from Florida State and brought him to Jackson State. This is unprecedented. No one leaves an opportunity to play for one of the biggest, most prestigious schools in the country with all NFL scouts’ eyes on them to go play for a Division II historically black college.
Let’s be very clear, it behooves these high school kids to commit to the larger programs like Alabama and Ohio State. The training facilities are state of the art. The best gyms, equipment, meal plans, all that shit. Those team sweatpants fit different when you go to Penn State compared to going to Temple.
You commit to LSU, you know most of your games with be televised nationwide. Even the laziest NFL scouts will catch a Georgia football ESPN game at noon on a random Saturday. Rarely do we see a guy like Joe Flacco from Delaware actually appear in an NFL draft. Going to one of the top schools almost guarantees you, at the very least, an NFL tryout.
But thanks to the new Name, Image, Likeness rules in college football that allow players to earn money off the field for the first time ever, the gap between these major programs and a Jackson State have been narrowed.
Deion Sanders can promise kids legit bags if they play for Jackson State. If I can make 6-7 figures at 19 years old from playing football then I don’t need to go to Clemson where head coach Dabo Swinney said he’d leave college football if the players got paid.
You have to appreciate the babies who are crying foul about what Sanders is doing. That he’s abusing the NIL rules to pay players. These same people would’ve been totally okay if Travis Hunter committed to USC and still had a big NIL deal waiting for him when he got there.
There are so many adult-toddlers who are deathly afraid of any sort of change that’ll write think pieces defending slavemasters with the sole purpose of keeping a Thomas Jefferson statue in their town square they mindlessly drive past when they pick up their pepperoni pizza every Friday night.
The only ethical problem here you miiiight have is the source of the potential dollars going to Travis Hunter. Deion Sanders has a podcast or some shit over at Barstool Sports and apparently, Barstool will be fronting this NIL bill.
Dave Portnoy was recently revealed to be a Trevor Bauer-esque sexual assault goblin who records himself having brutal sex with the youngest women he legally can so perhaps you don’t want his company’s name anywhere near the lives of teenagers but let’s not pretend like the boosters at Miami University amassed their wealth from food drives and charity events. You follow the money and you get into some nasty trash 11 times out of 10.
Sooo let’s focus on one of the best high school kids joining an HBCU instead of Alabama. The power dynamics of college football are finally changing.
Plus, Travis Hunter gets to meet Brittany Renner now. Deion Sanders is a genius.