How a trip to a deer stand helped Hunter Renfrow turn around his NFL rookie season
Hunter Renfrow was five games into his NFL career when he began to have some doubts about how effective he could be at the highest level of football.
A Socastee High grad and a former walk-on at Clemson, Renfrow is one of the most popular players in Clemson history after catching the game-winning touchdown pass from Deshaun Watson that lifted the Tigers to the 2016 national championship. He already beat the odds during his college career, going from a walk-on to a record-setting receiver. But could the fifth-round draft pick beat the odds again and make plays consistently in the NFL? Doubt was beginning to creep in.
In the first five games of his rookie season, Renfrow caught 12 passes for 101 yards, an average of about 20 yards per game. He was having trouble getting open and gaining separation against defenders.
“My first five weeks I felt like I was running good routes, but I was doing very chalkboard routes. It was like literally how you draw them up in the playbook,” Renfrow told The State. “That’s how I was running them. I was so scared to make a mistake and do something that would throw (quarterback) Derek (Carr) off.”
Renfrow had one catch for 12 yards in a 24-21 victory over the Bears in Week 5 in London. While getting a win was nice, Renfrow also knew he wasn’t playing up to his potential.
With an open week next, Renfrow returned to South Carolina to watch Clemson’s game against Florida State that upcoming weekend and to hang out with friends in the Upstate. Renfrow was in a deer stand alone with his thoughts that week when he decided he was going to change the way he played moving forward.
“I was really just up there thinking, ‘All right, forget this. If I’m going to get covered, I’m going to do it my way. I’m going to run the route my way.’ You still have to have the parameters around it and know what you can do and get away with and still be in the same spot,” Renfrow explained. “But I said, ‘There’s nothing to lose here. Let’s just go out and have fun.’ That’s really what I did and was able to have some success.”
Renfrow caught two passes for 14 yards the following week against the Packers. Even though the stats didn’t show it, Renfrow took a big step forward.
He was drawing separation from defenders, getting open and gaining confidence. The Raiders’ next game was against the Texans — Renfrow caught four passes for 88 yards, including his first career NFL touchdown. He credits the time in the deer stand for the turnaround.
“I was able to really process the season and how I wanted to set up routes. It was good for me to kind of, ‘All right, well I stunk it up the first five weeks. I can’t do it any worse. I’m really going to run routes and not be fearful of doing the wrong thing. Just try to bring my own flavor to it,’” he said.
Renfrow finished his rookie season second on the team with 49 catches for 605 yards and four scores. After not topping the 30-yard mark in any of his first five games, Renfrow had at least 31 yards in each of the final seven games he played in.
He missed three games late in the season with a broken rib and punctured lung but bounced back to record 100-yard games the final two weeks of the season. The two 100-yard receiving games were the first of his football career.
Renfrow had seven catches for 107 yards and a touchdown in Week 16 against the Chargers and six catches for 102 yards and a score in Week 17 against the Broncos. The highest yardage total Renfrow had during his college career was 93 against N.C. State in 2015.
“I’d never had a 100-yard game in my life, not in high school, not in college. I don’t even know if I had 100 yards in practice,” Renfrow said laughing. “But it was fun. I mean I got the first one, and it was coming off an injury, and I was like, ‘Man, this is awesome.’ It felt good to me just knowing that my teammates can trust me again. Since the injury I’ve been wearing like a flak jacket sort of under my pads. So I’m gonna wear it (this season). It’s 2-for-2 so I’m wearing it.”
Renfrow is currently in Greenville training for the 2020 season and hoping there is an NFL season in light of the coronavirus.
He’s been working out in the yard with his dogs to stay in shape.
“If I can beat the black lab, who runs 20 to 30 miles per hour, then I might have a chance out there on Sundays,” Renfrow said.
This story was originally published May 13, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
