Greer stars smart start with Clemson football [Video]

GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina) – A football star from Greenville turned down Harvard to stay home with Clemson football.

After an All-State career at Greer High School, Chase Byrd enrolled at Clemson a semester early at just 17 years old. In his first semester, he made the President’s List with a perfect 4.0 GPA.

“I treat football just as I treat school. So you can’t lollygag in one thing because that could affect something else,” Byrd said.  “It helped me show myself, I can still do this just at a higher level.”

Byrd earned eight scholarships to play football at schools like Maryland, Yale, Columbia and Harvard, but chose to walk on without a scholarship at Clemson.

“I just wanted to stay home,” he said. “The big thing for me is showing that, as a South Carolina native, we don’t have to go anywhere out of state to show we …