When redshirt freshman quarterback Sean Renfree fell to the field against Georgia Tech in Duke’s second-to-last game of the season, he thought he had simply twisted his knee. It felt like a punch to the back of his leg—or, maybe someone had fallen on it, he thought. After four or five seconds of pain, it didn’t even hurt anymore.
But an hour later, in the company of the team’s training staff and doctors, Renfree’s fears were realized by the results of an MRI: An ACL tear ended his redshirt freshman campaign prematurely, and Renfree’s presumed future as the Blue Devils’ quarterback in the wake of Thaddeus Lewis’s graduation was put on hold. And while the physical obstacle was obvious at once, a mental one emerged when the freshman saw the film.
“I watched it with my coach and if I had made... a read right, I could have just thrown the ball and I wouldn’t have had to move or anything,” Renfree said. “I wouldn’t have gotten hurt.... It’s tough to know, just something that was mental for me. If I had just done the right thing mentally, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt physically. But that can happen to anyone, an ACL tear, just any awkward movement to your knee.”
Renfree ended the season with 330 yards passing and completed 34 of his 50 pass attempts. Against Army, he led Duke to a 39-19 victory, throwing for 106 yards, two touchdowns and completing all but one of his eight pass attempts after the Blue Devils were behind 10-7 at halftime.
Now, three months since Renfree’s Nov. 14 fall, the quarterback is focused on rehabbing the injury, which involves lots of swimming, improving balance and regaining strength that the quarterback noted had quickly disappeared. When Renfree went home over Christmas break, he received no rest: Renfree’s father, Dr. Kevin Renfree, is an orthopedic surgeon. Dr. Renfree not only saw to it that his son attended physical therapy sessions Monday through Friday, but also gave him careful instructions on how to get the most out of his weekends. Three months out of surgery, Renfree has regained flexibility in his knee but is still two or three months from being ready for contact drills.
Beyond attending team workouts, Renfree’s ability to participate actively in practice is still very limited, but he is now able to step into throws and deliver his receivers the ball.
“He’s throwing now—you know, he’s still got it,” rising sophomore Connor Vernon said. “He’s not dropping back yet or anything like that, or running or doing any kind of that stuff. We’re doing drills and we’re doing drills with him. We’ll run our routes and he’s throwing them just standing there.”
With Renfree out of action, Duke has just two quarterbacks who can take part in full-contact drills as the Blue Devils’ March 27 spring game approaches: redshirt freshman Sean Schroeder and true freshman Brandon Connette, who enrolled at Duke at the start of this semester. Neither of those two has ever seen game action, and in all of Cutcliffe’s seasons as a Division-1 head coach, he has never gone into spring practice with just two quarterbacks, he said.
During Cutcliffe’s time as Tennessee’s offensive coordinator, then-freshman Peyton Manning was the team’s only quarterback as spring practice neared and Cutcliffe had to scramble to get two players under center just to be able to conduct a practice.
At a press conference Friday, Cutcliffe admitted that it would indeed be difficult for the team to go through the spring with this lack of depth at quarterback—especially given the pair’s youth—but noted that redshirt freshman Schroeder gained valuable experience in practice last August when Lewis not only had an ankle injury but also caught the flu.
“We didn’t advertise how little Thad practiced,” Cutcliffe said. “But Sean Renfree and Sean Schroeder were our quarterbacks last fall. We didn’t have another answer, so that kid got thrown in the fire. I’ve never put—even Peyton [Manning]—a freshman quarterback in as early as he was, repping every twos because of the necessity of it.”
For the Blue Devils, preparing for the fall knowing that Renfree will be back in a number of months should work, but the team will suddenly find it hard to conduct practice if one of the young quarterbacks gets injured.
“I’m not going to play second-string quarterback, so if one of them gets banged up, we’ve got a problem,” Cutcliffe added with a smile.
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