On the December 2021 day that Travis Hunter stunned college football by announcing that he was signing with Jackson State, his receivers coach at Collins Hill High immediately grasped the significance of what had just happened.
Todd Wofford did not need to be told that No. 1 prospects in the country, as Hunter was, invariably choose to play for powerhouses like Ohio State, Alabama or Texas. A school like Jackson State, an HBCU at the FCS level, is simply not an option. At least, it wasn’t until Hunter.
“‘I was like, ‘You just made it OK (for a highly recruited prospect to play for an HBCU),’” Wofford told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday, the day after his star pupil won the Heisman Trophy for his historic season as a two-way player for Colorado. “I said, ‘You have no idea, but we’ll see the effects later on down the line.’”
Hunter didn’t actually have to wait long. That same day, Wofford did something that he hadn’t planned on doing. Perhaps best known in coaching circles for leading a turnaround at Central Gwinnett High, Wofford said he walked out of the school theater where Hunter made his announcement and called Meadowcreek High Athletic Director LaShawn Smith, who was in the process of hiring a head coach.
“I said, ‘Give me the good, bad and everything,’” Wofford said.
Meadowcreek is an underdog school. Last year, almost 80% of students were eligible for free lunch, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Its football team has lost a lot. Sharing Gwinnett County with some of the state’s most successful and well-funded programs, the Mustangs recorded 25 losing seasons in one 26-year span (1991-2016) and in one nine-season stretch won a single game. It’s not the sort of program that would normally draw a coach with Wofford’s experience and credentials. Prior to Hunter’s announcement, Wofford said he hadn’t been considering the job at all.
But, inspired by his star pupil’s example of taking a chance on Jackson State, Wofford did the same. He said he has often been asked why he took the job at Meadowcreek.
“I’m like, ‘It’s a long story,’” he said in November. “But it was the Travis Hunter effect.”
The easy part to remember about Hunter’s college career is the last two years with the Buffaloes, and particularly his sensational 2024 season. He is unlike anything college football has seen in decades. He won an unprecedented trio of awards — the Bednarik Award (best defensive player), the Biletnikoff Award (best wide receiver) and the Heisman.
But he was a mold-breaker before he ever set foot on campus in Boulder, Colorado, and Wofford is all the necessary testament. It’s one thing for a high school coach to be impressed by an athlete’s ability or character, and many who coached Hunter raise their hands on both. But it’s quite another level of impact to make a life decision based on that young person’s example.
“He’s easy to kind of get a vibe off of him because he’s such a unique personality,” Wofford said. “Not just a football player.”
Credit: Photo courtesy Todd Wofford
Credit: Photo courtesy Todd Wofford
Wofford said that he has coached 12 players in his 29-year high-school coaching career who have reached the NFL. He calls Hunter a combination of all of them.
“He’s not the biggest, he’s not the fastest, he’s not the strongest,” Wofford said. “He’s just the best. Everybody, all those guys, their best traits. Their work ethic or intelligence or whatever it is, he has all of them.”
Beyond that, he handled himself in the classroom (Wofford was also his economics teacher) and was a humble and encouraging teammate. And Hunter took all of that to FCS Jackson State, turning down Florida State, Georgia and the rest of FBS.
In almost three decades of high-school coaching, Wofford said he had never had a player who influenced such a big decision in the way that Hunter did.
I suggested to Wofford that Hunter choosing Jackson State would have meant less if he had not been such an elite prospect. Further, if Hunter had done it for the shock value or to bring attention to himself instead of being a young man who by all accounts is humble and driven, it probably wouldn’t have struck Wofford as it did.
Said Wofford, “One hundred percent.”
The impact continues to be felt in different ways. HBCU graduates everywhere took pride that one of their schools launched a Heisman winner, a first in the award’s history. They were delighted that Hunter acknowledged former Jackson State teammates in his acceptance speech Saturday.
That included Atlanta business executive and philanthropist John Grant Jr., a champion for HBCU football. Grant is the executive director of the Celebration Bowl, the HBCU national championship game played annually at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Quite serendipitously, it was won Saturday by Jackson State, hours before Hunter was announced as the Heisman winner.
“I’m absolutely convinced that when anybody looks at Travis Hunter’s total journey, Jackson State is in there,” Grant told the AJC on Monday. “That’s not something that can be overlooked or erased.”
The rosters of Jackson State and other HBCU programs at the FCS level would suggest that Hunter and former Jackson State coach Deion Sanders aligning with the Tigers helped shine a light on those schools as potential destinations. Earlier this month, Hughes High wide receiver Jabari Jones signed with Jackson State over multiple FBS offers.
Wofford remembers telling Hunter after his announcement that his decision impacted Wofford’s son Christian.
“That impacted kids that are not born yet,” Wofford said.
And, surely, through Hunter serving as an example to Wofford, it impacted the players at Meadowcreek. Wofford’s tenure did not go as hoped. The Mustangs went to the playoffs and tied the school record with seven wins in his first season in 2022, but an injury to the starting quarterback in the 2023 season started a domino effect of injuries that led to back-to-back losing seasons. Wofford announced his retirement at the end of this season. Still, if he had it to do over, he said he’d make the same choice and take the job.
He spoke of Meadowcreek players who signed college scholarships and potentially changed their lives.
“Just those different stories that you hear and that you know about, that’s what makes the impact and that’s what makes it even bigger to me than who you beat on a Friday night,” Wofford said.
They may not turn out to be Heisman winners, but the ripples widen nevertheless.
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