Deion Sanders just signed the top college football recruit in the country. On Wednesday, cornerback Travis Hunter announced he has flipped his commitment from Florida State to Jackson State and is one of the first players since recruiting rankings started to sign with an FCS school, according to ESPN. Hunter played high school football at Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Georgia and was committed to Florida State since March 2020.
“Florida State has always been a beacon for me,” Hunter wrote in his Twitter post. “I grew up down there, that’s where my roots are, and I never doubted that I would play for the Seminoles. It’s a dream that is hard to let go of, but sometimes we are called to step into a bigger future than the one we imagined for ourselves. For me, that future is at Jackson State University.”
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Sanders was named the Jackson State head coach last year and has turned the team around very quickly. After a solid spring season earlier this year, Jackson State had a 2021 fall season to remember, finishing the year with an 11-1 record and its first SWAC Championship since 2007. The Tigers will now play in the Celebration Bowl on Saturday and will look to win their first Black college national championship since 1996.
“I realized that on signing day, way prior, that we had acquired some wonderful talent, that that talent was unusual to the HBCU world and that all we needed was a little time and that time was the spring that we could evaluate that we could see what we had, that we could make the possible and necessary changes and that we were sore from then on,” Sanders told PopCulture.com when asked when he realized his team was special. “And that’s what we did. What we are right now, we’re not surprised. I know it sounds cocky. I know it may sound a bit arrogant, but I have a quote that’s on my wall right now that said, ‘Do not let my confidence offend your insecurity’ because we are very confident in who we are, what we are and how we get down.”
Hunter was a two-way player for Collins Hill but will likely play cornerback at Jackson State, according to 247Sports. Despite missing five games this past season, Hunter led Collins Hills to a state championship, finishing with 1,128 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns in nine games. He also recorded 20.5 tackles and four interceptions at cornerback.
