"That’s Travis Hunter’s father actually": CFB world buzz as Stanford's Elic Ayomanor wows the crowd with a one-handed grab
JMA Wireless Dome witnessed an amazing one-handed grab from Stanford wide receiver Elic Ayomanor in the endzone. In the first quarter of Friday's Stanford-Syracuse game, Cardinal quarterback Ashton Daniels led a successful offensive drive, completing 78 yards on nine plays. The final play saw Daniels pass the ball to Ayomanor in the endzone for a 17-yard touchdown.
The slow-motion reel of Ayomanor making a stunning flying one-handed grab has been going viral on the internet.
One fan made the comparison of this reception to that of the Colorado Buffaloes' two-way star Travis Hunter.
"That’s Travis Hunter’s father actually," one fan wrote.
"One of the most underrated players in the nation IMO," one fan commented.
"That's Colorado's father," another reacted with a dig at Deion Sanders' program.
The praise continued to pour in for Ayomanor's acrobatic play.
"Yea that was tough 🔥" another wrote.
"Best receiver in the country," one user hailed Elic Ayomanor's skills.
"Ayomanor when he got up," another fan wrote with a GIF of Tom Brady flashing his Super Bowl rings.
Elic Ayomanor had a strong debut college football campaign last season as he caught 62 passes for 1,013 yards and six touchdowns.
This season, he has also started positively. In the previous two Cardinal games, he had 10 catches for 147 yards.
Canada's Elic Ayomanor picked football over ice hockey
Elic Ayomanor hails from Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. Like most Canadians, who love the ice rinks more than football, Ayomanor was faced with the decision to pick between his love for football and hockey.
“I grew up playing hockey,” he told PFF. “That’s what everybody does in Canada. I started playing football just before middle school. When you go into middle school in Canada, that’s when you have to decide if you’re going to take the hockey thing pretty seriously. At that point, I really started to fall in love with football.”
To get closer to intense football action, Elic Ayomanor decided to move from his native Alberta to New Jersey before finishing his last two years in Massachusetts. Switching countries wasn't easy but Ayomanor knew what he wanted to become.
“When you have ambition and a goal in mind, it makes it a lot easier,” he said. “You know that what you’re doing is necessary and will give you opportunities to achieve your goals faster. Having that in the back of my mind made it much, much easier for me because I knew everything I was doing was for a reason.”
Everything worked out well for him in the end. He was rated three stars in the 2022 recruiting class and received offers from notable programs like Stanford, Notre Dame, California, Tennessee, and Ole Miss.
He would go on to enroll at Stanford in 2022.