‘I didn’t think he was gonna play again’: Dabo Swinney on Panther Hunter Renfrow

It felt like Clemson in the late 2010s in Charlotte on Monday at Carolina Panthers training camp.

There was Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney, watching intently as a slight wide receiver wearing No. 13 ran routes. And there was No. 13, former Clemson walk-on turned two-time national champion Hunter Renfrow, running just as fast and as deceptively as he used to when he was wearing orange in Death Valley.

“I didn’t think he was gonna play again,” said Swinney, who took a one-day jaunt up to Panthers practice the day before Clemson football got going again Tuesday. Dabo wanted to look in on the guy who caught a two-yard touchdown pass against Alabama with one second left in the 2016 national championship game to win the title, then was a big part of a Clemson team that won another championship in 2018.

And Renfrow? He looked good. The former Las Vegas Raider has looked so good throughout this training camp, in fact, that I think the Panthers are going to have to make a place for him in a crowded receiver room that features Adam Thielen and back-to-back first-round picks in Tetairoa McMillan and Xavier Legette.

Carolina is obviously trying some things out with Renfrow. He’s also been taking some reps as a punt returner, although his real value is as a receiver who’s only 5-10 and 185 pounds but, as Swinney said, “plays like he’s 6-foot-3.”

At age 29, Renfrow is attempting to make a comeback from serious health issues that forced him to take the entire 2024 season off and contemplate an early retirement. Renfrow was beset by a condition called ulcerative colitis, which caused fatigue, major weight loss (he once was down to 150 pounds) and a series of high fevers.

It took several years to be correctly diagnosed and treated. Renfrow had his best season for the Raiders in 2021, catching 103 passes for 1,038 yards and nine touchdowns. Renfrow made the Pro Bowl that season and was rewarded with a new contract, but the next two years were full of injuries and health concerns. “He got sick,” Swinney said, “and he really didn’t know how to deal with what he was dealing with.”

The Raiders would eventually release Renfrow, and the wide receiver felt so unlike himself in 2024 that he thought maybe football was over.

The fact that it isn’t — and that he was signed to a one-year deal by the Panthers — has made him feel like he did back in college. As Renfrow described it Monday: “Having an appreciation of being back out here and being able to feel like I can run again, to feel like I can go out there and have fun with my teammates again. Be a part of the team. Be a part pushing toward something special.”

Renfrow eventually changed his diet and found doctors who prescribed the proper medicines. He worked out at Clemson some in 2024 — “now his training is playing basketball, pickleball, throwing a Frisbee, maybe run a few routes” — Dabo joked.

Renfrow told Swinney that ideally he’d play for the Panthers in 2025.

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” laughed Swinney, but Renfrow ended up speaking it into existence. The Clemson coach couldn’t have been happier about it.

“Hunter’s more than just a kid I coach,” Swinney said. “My oldest son (Will) and him are best of friends, in each other’s weddings…. We vacation together every year. We’re close, much more than just a coach-player relationship.”

The Panthers are careful not to oversell Renfrow’s comeback. After all, barring injury, at best he probably would be Carolina’s No. 4 receiver in 2025, behind Thielen, Legette and McMillan. And there’s a chance, certainly, that something happens in the preseason and he doesn’t end up making the roster at all.

But I wouldn’t bet against Renfrow, given the trajectory of his career before he got sick. He looks like he can move again and he sounds like he can do it without fatigue.

“He looks like the Hunter I remember,” Panthers coach Dave Canales said.

“I knew he had more football in him,” Swinney said, “and it’s fun to see him happy and just healthy. He’ll do the rest. I know he doesn’t look the part. But he puts a helmet on and he turns into Superman.”

This story was originally published July 28, 2025 at 3:33 PM.