As it did almost every year, the Lutheran North High School football team and its then-coach, Brian Simmons, made the 11-mile drive from St. Louis to Earth City, Missouri. As they stood in Rams Park during that 2013 summer, watching their hometown St. Louis Rams conduct training camp, one player was drawing a crowd.
“What position do you play?” the droves of kids in their Rams gear asked the 6-foot-5, 247-pound giant that towered over them.
A 17-year old Renell Wren replied to the youngsters trying to score his autograph: “I’m in high school.”
They thought he was on the Rams, confusing a high schooler that couldn’t vote for an NFL player making millions.
“I really looked like an NFL player as I was coming out of high school,” Wren said. “For them comparing me to an NFL player, NFL size, it was pretty awesome because people want to be all that hype, saying like ‘Oh man, you can join the league right now.’
“But knowing if you step a foot on that field right now, you don't know what you are doing.”
Wren was able to stand next to NFL players and compare. Though he noticed the differences, others didn’t. As people began to mistake him for what he was striving to be -- an NFL player -- he was able to see what was possible.
“I took him around those things to get him motivated,” Simmons said. “(I would) say ‘Man, you could be one of these guys one day.”
If all goes to plan, he will be one of those guys in less than a year. Wren mentioned he’s had NFL teams reaching out since April, contacting ASU defensive line coach Shaun Nua, his high school coaches and messaging him directly.
As he put it, “They have been trying to get their hands on me.”
Wren’s name began floating around the public sphere this summer as he appeared on The Athletic’s and NFL.com’s 2018 college football freaks list, re-affirming what ASU fans have seen for a while. But Wren, who has been taking first-team reps at nose tackle throughout fall camp, has underwhelmed in his time at ASU, racking up just 24 tackles and two sacks in three years.
As his coaches describe the 6-foot-6, 304-pound greek god that bench press 440-pounds and runs with wide receivers, one word was repeated and reiterated to describe Wren: Potential.
Lighting the fire
Wren is a gentle giant. As he described his three-class master’s program schedule and his devotion to God, his soft, respectful tone showed itself with clarity. He walks into practice like he has a clear mind, running through drills with little emotion.
For Simmons, the relaxed personality Wren expressed was infuriating.
“He was so laid back that he pissed me off a lot,” said Simmons, who only coached Wren during his senior season. “I struggled almost the whole year just trying to get him going. Coming in as the new head coach, I’m looking at this guy saying, ‘I know he’s going to do some damage.’
“But once I got there and practice started and games started, he really didn’t give me what I thought he was going to give me.”
Before Week 5 of that season, Simmons went at his strongest player. His words, which often irked Wren, were intended to challenge him, aimed at flipping his calm temper on the field.
Wren said Simmons set a switch in his mind to keep going until there’s nothing left, reminding him to attack everything instead of just each individual play. The results were definitive
“I knew he could be successful next level but he just wasn’t showing it at the time when he was in high school until about the fifth game of the season,” Simmons said. “I lit into him and I said something, did something and it really pissed him off … and he basically just took over a game.”
Those around him have echoed what Simmons saw with Wren’s laid-back personality. But it tows on the correct side of a very fine line -- he is not lazy, just a tad nonchalant.
In just a few months with Wren, ASU head coach Herm Edwards has already seen similar traits, echoing things he learned from his father, who was a Master Sergeant in the U.S. Army, about keeping a routine and never taking a day off.
Edwards didn’t go into specifics or provide any examples to describe Wren’s demeanor like Simmons did. Nonetheless, the message came across just the same.
“I think for him, and I’ve talked to him about this, there’s a standard of play that you want to live up to as a player, as an individual,” Edwards said. “I’ve always believed that it shouldn’t be dictated by your opponent or how you feel that day when you come to practice.”
But Edwards knows how rare Wren’s combination of size and speed is. If put together correctly, his name can be on lists far more notable than those ranking college football’s biggest freaks -- but only Wren can determine that.
He has one year to showcase what he can do. Now operating in a 3-3-5 defensive scheme, his strengths or raw power and athleticism should be highlighted.
“The table’s set, and how’s he going to play. I think for him he wants to play with consistency, that’s what people are looking for,” Edwards said. “Scouts that I talk to, they say ‘Coach’ and I say, ‘Well now he’s in a system now that’ll allow him to do some things and hopefully it’ll highlight what he does.’”
Becoming a freak
Shawn Griswold first interacted with Wren in the summer of 2014. By the time No. 95 was ready to take the field for ASU ahead of his redshirt freshman season in 2015, the former ASU Head Coach of Sports Performance had helped bulk up Wren nearly 45 pounds.
But how does one increase their weight from 247 pounds to 290 pounds in about a year and a half? “That’s a very good question,” Wren said.
Apparently the formula includes staying in the weight room and “drinking Muscle Milk like it was just water.”
“As I progressed getting stronger and everything, I have more muscle on my body than fat, Wren said. “Any time I get I like to be in the weight room in the summertime when we do the summer grind and everything. I like to do extra lifting on off days, at night time before we get it on tomorrow morning. That's just me, I love working out.”
Griswold, who is now at Virginia, said Wren’s 45-pound weight gain is normal for a football player as big and lean as he is; but he was clear in emphasizing that the added pounds are a benefit.
ASU’s nutrition staff, along with Griswold, were there every step of the way to track Wren’s body percentage numbers, ensuring that he was putting on good weight. Wren was helpful in that process, opting for rest recovery and proper hydration after workouts instead of rewarding himself with junk food.
“People get scared because, ‘Oh, he got too big, he’s not going to be fast.’ That’s not true,” Griswold said. “If you’re doing it the right way, all you’re going to do is be more explosive, more dynamic and be able to jump higher, run faster and jump further.”
Griswold worked with the nose tackle during his first four years of college, grabbing a front row seat to watch an athletic marvel that few can draw comparisons for.
He listed off Wren’s weight-room maxes with amazement like he was watching the St. Louis native perform the feats in front of him again. “He’s a 440(-pound) bencher. I know he squatted 530(-pounds) for us five times last July. He’s a 335-pound-plus cleaner for us for reps,” Griswold said.
“You can’t catch Renell in the weight room,” junior wide receiver N’Keal Harry said. “When he’s lifting you just can sit there and stare in awe. Renell makes us all feel weak. He’s so strong, he’s really a freak.”
For Griswold, Wren was like that new toy he always wanted to try out, often challenging the Lutheran North High School alum with different things only he could perform. Last July, ASU was doing a 225-pound bench pressing test, the same that players at the NFL Combine participate in. But Wren wanted to do the test with an extra 90 pounds. So an additional 45-pound plate was thrown on each side of the bar just before Wren cranked out 11 reps of 315-pounds.
Wren isn’t just a freak because of his frame or weight, or how much he benches. It’s the fact that he can do all of that while flying past guys half his size.
“He’s not a normal big dude,” Griswold said. “He’s a big man in a skill man’s body -- the things he can do, the speeds he can run, when we race, he’s fast. They don’t make them like that very often. Not that athletic, and he has that on-field power, too.”
Translating weight-room success to the field
ASU was gifted with a flurry of depth along its defensive line over the past few seasons. Lost in the shuffle, Wren was never able to break through as a full-time starter. Former ASU defensive linemen JoJo Wicker, who declared for the draft last year, and Tashon Smallwood were eating up playing time as he was regulated to a reserve.
He was a good player who was often buried in a deep rotation, forced to pop in and out of the mix during his time in Tempe. Last year, however, he showed signs of progression. Wren appeared in all 13 of ASU’s games, recording a memorable sack in ASU’s upset over No. 5 Washington and a career-high five tackles against Arizona.
For Simmons, that Washington game in which Wren tallied three tackles and 1.5 for a loss brought back memories of coaching him. Something clicked then -- there was no thinking, just execution.
“It seems like he’s in deep thought all the time and sometimes in that deep thought, you miss something when you’re out there on the field,” Simmons said. “I don’t know what coach said or what he did, but he actually went off that game.”
It’s Year 5 now, and the questions about playing time are finally out the window. Wren has been taking a large majority of the first-team reps at nose tackle this fall and is expected to start for ASU in his redshirt senior season.
The starting role is met with one as equally daunting and exciting: Leadership.
“I’m definitely blessed to be a leader on the D-line and it comes with a huge responsibility but anybody is capable of doing anything now,” he said. “What I've seen since my freshman year and what the seniors did, I’ve seen it and now I can excel upon that and be greater.”
ASU’s defensive linemen are moving constantly along the line, taking to the 3-3-5 scheme perhaps better than any other position group. With the help of linebacker blitzes, they’re forcing the quarterback out of the pocket with regularity and limiting painful chunk runs up the middle.
It’s a cohesive unit that, with only three on the field at a given time, has droves of players garnering meaningful reps. In essence, the group will have a rotation.
Most practices see eight to nine guys grabbing first- or second-team reps on the defensive line; with Wren and defensive ends Jalen Bates and Shannon Foreman often receiving the most time with the starters. The group has had a solid camp, and that includes Wren, who bulldozes just about every offensive lineman he faces during one-on-one battles.
“He’s been great,” defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales said of Wren. “If he continues to play with the right pad-level he could be a dominating nose guard, one of the best in the country. He’s had a great camp so far. He’s been the anchor up front and I’m really excited to see him play.”
If all goes well for Wren this season, his name may shift from freaks lists to mock drafts. He may even end up being the player other high schoolers watch and training camp and compare themselves against.
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