Head Coach Liam Coen<\/a> spoke, too, and said of Hunter, “I’m pleased with the way he has attacked everything that we’re trying to do.”<\/p>\nHunter, the 2024 Heisman Trophy winner, said Friday the early days of camp have been largely to “get the rust off” after spending the ’26 offseason program rehabilitating a knee injury that kept him out the last 10 games of the Jaguars’ 2025 AFC South Championship season.<\/p>\n
Hunter, who played both wide receiver and cornerback in 2025 and will do again this season, has participated fully in the first three days of camp.<\/p>\n
“I put nine months in, so it doesn’t feel like I’m coming off an injury,” Hunter said. “I’ve been gone for nine months, not able to be out here with my teammates for nine months, so finally being able to hit the grass, knock the rust off and just continue to click with the quarterbacks and click with the defense.”<\/p>\n
Hunter has practiced with both the offense and defense all three days of ’26 camp. He focused on a specific side of the ball early in ’25 camp before working with both sides in later practice and into the regular season.<\/p>\n
“It was a learning process,” said Hunter, who spent extensive time in the Jaguars’ virtual training room this offseason while rehabilitating. “I was able to get in the playbook for the second year on both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n
“Learn it, understand it. Just not my job, but everyone else’s job so I can get comfortable, just go out there and play fast when I touch the grass.”<\/p>\n
Hunter, who caught 28 passes for 298 yards and one touchdown last season on offense while also playing extensively at cornerback, gained significant size and strength in the offseason. He recently ran 22.6 miles per hour and said he feels lighter after adding 10 pounds.<\/p>\n
“I was a small guy coming in,” Hunter said. “Everybody was like, ‘Gain weight, gain weight.’ Coach (Coen) was like, ‘Hey, play at whatever weight you’re happy at.’ So, me just coming in and putting on those pounds \u2026 I was scared at first. I’m like, ‘I’ve never played at this weight. I’m going to feel heavy, not going to be able to do what I do.’<\/p>\n
“Training and being able to put those months in, not just on the grass, but in the weight room too, just putting in extra work, it made me feel lighter on my feet when I finally touched the grass. I’m happy to be at this weight and continue to play at this weight.”<\/p>\n
He said Friday he feels “a lot faster” entering this season.<\/p>\n
“I’m trying to hit 23 now,” he said. “That’s the next goal. I’m a defensive back and a receiver, so I’ve got to be able to put them up and put them down.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE \u2013 He’s still smiling, and he’s bigger now. He’s also even faster, all of which means wide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[128669,881,116,118,117,880,883,144761,55405,60676,5016],"class_list":["post-360033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-2026-training-camp","tag-front-page-headline","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-news-front-page-headline","tag-news-jaguars-news","tag-news-training-camp","tag-sponsor-dream-finders-homes","tag-sponsors-dream-finders","tag-travis-hunter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}