David NewtonJul 28, 2025, 02:38 PM ETCloseDavid Newton is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Carolina Panthers. Newton began covering Carolina in 1995 and came to ESPN in 2006 as a NASCAR reporter before joining NFL Nation in 2013.Follow on X
David NewtonJul 28, 2025, 02:38 PM ET
CloseDavid Newton is an NFL reporter at ESPN and covers the Carolina Panthers. Newton began covering Carolina in 1995 and came to ESPN in 2006 as a NASCAR reporter before joining NFL Nation in 2013.Follow on X
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CHARLOTTE, N.C.
— Almost as though it was scripted,Carolina Pantherswide receiverHunter Renfrowon Monday made a diving catch of a ball thrown slightly behind him about 20 feet from where Clemson coach Dabo Swinney was standing.
It was Swinney, Hunter’s college coach, who talked the 2019 fifth-round pick by theLas Vegas Raidersand 2021 Pro Bowl selection out of giving up football while he sat out the 2024 season with the autoimmune disease ulcerative colitis.
It was Swinney who had just said Renfrow (5-foot-10, 185 pounds) looked like a normal person in street clothes but “turned into Superman” once he put his helmet on.
Swinney, in a one-on-one interview with ESPN before being corralled into a group interview, said Renfrow told him last year, “I’m done, I’m done. I’m not going to play anymore.”
Renfrow, speaking to ESPN on Saturday, said it was Swinney’s encouragement and support afterward that convinced him to give football one more shot.
“He said, ‘Why would you not [play]? You have the opportunity of a lifetime,” Renfrow recalled of Swinney’s pep talk. “That’s part of what makes him special.
Pushing to get the best out of people, just believing in you even when you don’t believe in yourself.”
Swinney tried to get Renfrow to make a comeback last season when a couple of teams reached out to the receiver. He said Renfrow’s focus was on getting healthy and playing for the Panthers, a team he grew up cheering for as a star athlete in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Renfrow, 29, also told his agent he only wanted to play for the Panthers because they fit everything he was looking for.
Swinney tried to explain to his former player, now a good friend with whom he takes vacations and plays golf and basketball, that’s not how it works. But Renfrow was insistent, and watching him make plays during the team’s first padded practice reminded Swinney of everything he saw in 2014 when the undersized receiver walked on at Clemson.
Source: Espnnfl
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