Colorado State DB receives death threats for hit on Colorado's Travis Hunter

Colorado State defensive back Henry Blackburn received death threats during and after the Rams’ loss in a rivalry game against Colorado on Saturday, according to multiple reports.

On Monday, Colorado State Athletic Director Joe Parker told ESPN that campus police and local authorities are looking into the threats, which occurred after Blackburn’s personal phone number and that of his mother’s, along with his campus address and family’s home address, were published online.

Blackburn, a senior, was criticized for a late hit on two-way star Travis Hunter after an incomplete pass in the first quarter of the game. CSU was penalized 15 yards for unnecessary roughness. Hunter was slow to get up and was taken to a local hospital. Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders said Hunter will be out for three weeks with an undisclosed injury.

Colorado State head coach Jay Norvell also told the media on Monday that Blackburn was receiving death threats.

“Our university is supporting him (Blackburn). The police department is supporting him because of the seriousness of the threats that have come out of this,” Norvell said, per the Coloradoan, part of the USA TODAY network. “It’s just sad. It’s sad that that’s the state of the world we live in. It’s a football game. Let’s not make it more than that. We don’t want anybody to get hurt. We don’t coach that kind of football.”

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Norvell commented on the nature of Blackburn’s hit on Hunter.

“I reviewed the play. It’s a play that happens sometimes,” he said. ‘When you throw a deep ball and have a guy playing middle safety, he’s got to react on the boundary and he’s going full speed. It was a bang-bang type of a play.

“The officials looked at it and we looked at it. It’s certainly not something that we teach or coach. It happens in football sometimes. Seems to have been a lot of attention about that play, but it’s a play that happens.”