Once again, Hunter Renfrow has proven an average looking guy can play major college football if he truly wants to.
Everyone knows Renfrow’s story. A former high school quarterback who ran the triple-option at Socastee High School in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and then walked on to Clemson in the fall of 2014. Before the start of the 2015 season, he earned a scholarship and then put together one of the most unlikely stories in Clemson history.
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney described Renfrow to that of an every-day kind of guy, saying he looked more like an equipment manager than a player.
At 5-foot-10, Renfrow came to Clemson at 155 pounds. He told the story several times on how no one around campus believed he was the Hunter Renfrow that was catching passes from Deshaun Watson over at Death Valley on Saturday afternoons.
Though people did not believe it was him, Renfrow made plays on Saturdays. He later became a college football celebratory when he lit up Alabama with seven catches for 88 yards and two touchdowns in the 2016 National Championship Game.
The next season, he became even more famous when he topped the previous year’s performance by posting a career-high 10 receptions for 92 yards and two more scores against the Crimson Tide in the 2017 title game. One of those touchdowns was the game-winner from Watson with one-second left that was forever immortalized on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
These days, as he prepares for next week’s NFL Scouting Combine, everyone–at least at Clemson–knows he is indeed the same guy that caught passes from Watson and Trevor Lawrence on fall Saturdays.
However, there is still one part of Renfrow’s story that still might surprise Clemson fans. He recently admitted he had one of the worst diets on the team during his career.
“I have literally the worst diet,” he said to Mark Childress on his Facebook show the Ring. “I don’t even know how I played. I would eat Zaxby’s or fried food like five of the seven days of the week.”
Renfrow admits his diet is the number one thing he has to work on during his training under former Tiger Joe Don Reames at his TNT Training Facility in Anderson. Renfrow has been working out with his fellow teammates, tight end Cannon Smith, wide receiver Trevion Thompson and defensive tackle Albert Huggins.
He says Reames’ wife has helped a lot with his diet, getting him on protein shakes and feeding him healthy meals to help him first lose all the fat in his body and then put on the necessary muscle weight he needs.
“It dropped all the fat out of me, so I dropped down to 175,” Renfrow said laughing. “I was kind of surprised by it, but now I am back to 180. I hope to get up to 185.”
In this past month of training, Renfrow says he wanted to develop his body more and he has done it.
“That starts with my diet and then try to get stronger and a little bigger,” he said. “One hundred and eighty-five (pounds) will be a good weight for me. I came to Clemson at one fifty-five and I have put on about five pounds every season, so just continue that trend.”
“It needs to be good weight, not Zaxby’s weight, which there is nothing wrong with Zaxby’s,” he continued with a laugh.”
At the combine Renfrow will work as a wide receiver, punt returner and as a punter. Obviously, his goal is to play wide receiver in the NFL, but he understands he first has to earn his keep on special teams.
Like he did at Clemson, Renfrow says he is willing to do anything to earn a spot on a roster next fall.
He understands being invited to the NFL Combine is an honor, but at the same time, he also knows there is a lot of pressure to perform. However, like everything else he has done at Clemson, he has a different approach than most when it comes to working out in front of all the NFL coaches, scouts, general managers and owners.
“For me, you can either play or you can’t. You are either good enough or you are not,” Renfrow said. “That is kind of how I look at it. You can make money at the combine. You want to do well and that is why we are training for a month is to do well.
“At the end of the day, you can either play or you can’t. I’m either good enough or I am not. I am kind of looking at it like that. That kind of takes some of the pressure away from it.”
And once he is done with the combine and Clemson’s Pro Day on March 14, he is heading back to a familiar place.
“Once I am done with football, I am going back to Zaxby’s,” Renfrow said smiling. “That will be the first meal I eat once we are done with Pro Day.”
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