By Max Brucks
During the game between Colorado and Colorado State, Colorado State’s safety, Henry Blackburn, laid a hit on Colorado’s wide receiver, Travis Hunter, that would take Hunter out of the game. The aftermath of this hit has gotten quite ugly online in regard to the messages sent toward the Colorado State safety. After the hit against Hunter there was a major scuffle that got the Colorado quarterback, Shedeur Sanders, involved. Colorado would go on to win the game in overtime by a score of 43-35. The score wasn’t the biggest story of this game between the two rivals as Colorado State would have to get campus police involved after the messages that were sent toward Blackburn. Colorado State’s coach, Jay Norvell, had this to say about the incident, “Our university is supporting him, the police department is supporting him because of the seriousness of the threats that have come out of this.” “I mean it’s just sad. It’s sad that that’s the state of the world we live in. I mean it’s a football game. Let’s not make it more than that.” Not only have there been death threats sent toward the Colorado State safety, but there have also been calls to take his scholarship. Deion Sanders has stated that the Colorado team has forgiven the Ram’s safety, and that Colorado is moving on to the next week.
This injury will go on to affect the Colorado Buffaloes as they will be without Travis Hunter for possibly their two biggest games of the year against Oregon and Southern California. Travis Hunter has said, “It’s football at the end of the day,” while streaming on his Twitch channel. Hunter has been one of college football’s biggest stars this season and has been considered for the Heisman Award. Hunter burst onto the scene after Colorado’s first game and win over the college football playoff runner-up, TCU. Hunter was sensational in the first win for the Buffaloes coming up with an interception in the red zone combined with a touchdown on offense.
The idea of sending death threats is nothing new for a lot of athletes as well. Later that week, Vikings running back, Alexander Mattison, would share messages he received after the Vikings’ loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Mattison would post on Instagram the racist and hateful messages sent to him after the game. Sadly, this has become an epidemic with the new age of social media and the boom of fantasy sports a lot of people have found it okay to send hateful messages to players. Athletes are people too and need to be treated with respect even when they don’t perform to a certain standard. Either way, this doesn’t seem like an epidemic that is stopping anytime soon which is not good.
