“Baby Gronk” Growing Up Fast: Bentancur Could Be Clemson’s Next Great Tight End

When Dabo Swinney sat down on Tiger Hour earlier this week, it didn’t take long before the Clemson head coach was asked about redshirt freshman tight end Christian Bentancur. You could almost hear Swinney’s smile on the radio.

“Bentancur is just — he’s a really good player,” Swinney said. “I think we’ve got an outstanding room right there. He’s a great worker. You come over here at 1:30 on Sunday — he’s out running and sprinting 110 (yards), and walking back. He’s just an incredibly committed kid. He’s got an unlimited ceiling. He really does. He can do it all. Sky’s the limit.”

That work ethic, the early-morning sprints and extra hours, has already translated into early production. Against North Carolina last weekend, Bentancur caught two touchdowns, his first in a Clemson uniform, and both came on sharp route execution and incredible athleticism. Yesterday, during his time with the media, he said the moment was everything he had imagined growing up.

“Honestly, it was mostly just instinct,” Bentancur noted. “Cade didn’t have much time to get the ball off, kind of put it in a good spot, and I caught it and saw the safety coming up — just tried to get out of the way and then just a race for the end zone. The first touchdown? As a kid, you grow up and you’re watching all these highlights, and I’m like, ‘That’s something I want to do one day.’ It’s a dream. So to finally get in the end zone and do it — that little jump at the end — that was just my excitement, I guess.”

Swinney jokingly called him “Baby Gronk” after the win, a label the freshman tight end took with a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t know where he got that honestly,” Bentancur said. “He’s a great tight end, so it’s definitely someone I’d like to impersonate in my game for sure. Partly the reason, yeah, I would say it’s just a great tight end number and a lot of the greats have worn it, so that’s definitely part of the reason why I wear 87.”

The comparison fits. Like Rob Gronkowski, Bentancur is long, physical, and dangerous after the catch. He’s also a developing blocker — something he admits wasn’t part of his game coming out of high school in Illinois.

“Coming in, being a wide receiver in high school, I didn’t really block much, honestly, and that was definitely something that I needed to work on a lot,” he said. “Just going through the last year and a half and going against some of the best defensive ends and linebackers in the nation really prepared me for every single game.”

Bentancur said he’s leaned heavily on veterans like Olsen Patt-Henry to learn that side of the position. “If you watch Olsen’s film on blocking, it’s incredible,” he said. “I’ve studied his tape a lot and took a lot of inspiration from that, because I think he’s truly an elite blocker. I think he could block anyone — in space or in the box — and I’ve really studied his film a lot to try to do what he does.”

That attention to detail shows in the way he approaches each week. The Sunday workouts Swinney mentioned aren’t exaggerated; they’re part of a personal routine.

“I just try every day to be the best,” Bentancur said. “There’s a quote that’s like, ‘If you stop growing, you start dying,’ and I feel like you let other people catch up to you if you don’t do something every day to push yourself. It doesn’t have to be physical all the time. It could be watching film. Sunday’s just kind of my routine to come in, get a nice little recovery lift, and get some sprints in. It just depends on how I’m feeling, usually from 10 to 12, nothing crazy. It won’t kill me because I’m still sore from the day before. But it’s something to get your body moving, because you don’t want to be stiff coming into the week.”

It’s that mindset that first drew him to Clemson. Bentancur said his recruiting visit to Death Valley, a home game against Louisville, made the decision easy.

“I kind of describe it as having a crush on a girl. You just have that feeling, and I didn’t want to lose the chance to come here,” he said. “That’s why I made the decision — just the family atmosphere, how Coach Swinney implements God into everything that we do, and just our culture. I think it’s just different than any other school.”

The former high school receiver has also become a film junkie. He studies players who blend physicality with polish -- names like Mark Andrews and Gronkowski -- and even keeps an eye on Chicago’s new tight end room.

“I think mostly Mark Andrews is probably who I watch the most film on,” Bentancur said. “I think he’s just a very complete tight end in everything he does — in the run game and in the pass game. Also, I’m a Chicago fan. Honestly, being from Chicago, I’m a big Bears fan, so the new addition with Colston Loveland has been fun to see for sure.”

Additionally, the irony wasn’t lost on him that his first touchdown came against a Bill Belichick–coached team. “Growing up, I obviously watched Gronkowski a lot,” Bentancur said. “Then going against Bill Belichick in North Carolina — it was kind of funny. Everyone was saying he’s seen a lot of touchdowns from number 87, but this time it was from the other side of the field.”

He said the team’s offensive breakthrough in Chapel Hill was a relief more than anything. “We finally put all the pieces together this week,” he said. “We knew we could do this for so long, and finally putting all the pieces together was definitely exciting for not only the offense but the whole team.”

Bentancur also connected Swinney’s now-famous “Batman” message to the team’s renewed confidence.

“It was just the first couple games, it kind of seemed like we lost our identity and forgot who we were,” he said. “Coming into the last game, he just preached, ‘We’re Batman. We’re Clemson football. We are the standard.’ Just going into that game, it made us confident to go out and play.”

That confidence is visible in his growing chemistry with quarterback Cade Klubnik. “Me and Cade, just on and off the field, have grown a lot — just watching film together or getting extra throws in after practice,” Bentancur said. “I think we’re continuing to grow our relationship, and it’s really been showing.”

Next up for Bentancur and Clemson is a trip to Boston College — a long road game against a team Swinney called “much better than their record.” Bentancur knows what’s coming. “They fly around, they go with great effort, and it’s gonna be a great matchup for sure,” he said. “They play a lot of man, which is exciting. Hopefully, we can just play our game, and I don’t really think it matters who we play against — as long as we play our game, then we’ll succeed.”

He smiled when asked if the win at UNC changed anything for the team. “We just gotta stack every day,” he said. “Coach Swinney always professes just being 1–0 each week. We’re not worried about the last game anymore. We’re not worried about the next game after BC. We’re just worried about this week. If we can just keep being 1–0 and keep stacking days, then we’ll win this weekend.”

For Swinney, that mindset is exactly why he’s so bullish on his freshman tight end. “He’s got an unlimited ceiling,” the coach said. “He really does. He can do it all. Sky’s the limit.”