Peanut butter and progress: How a change in diet helped Cole Chewins reach 300 pounds

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Cole Chewins can laugh about it now, after all these years stuffing his face with seemingly everything and anything imaginable. The weight has been lifted off of his shoulders and transferred to more useful areas, like his stomach and lower body. For the first time since joining Michigan State’s football program, Chewins finally weighs 300 pounds.

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This has long been a goal for Chewins, one he accomplished within the last three months or so. Football keeps the senior offensive lineman in shape, with all the conditioning and running and whatnot, and has made it difficult for him to add weight to his slim 6-foot-8 frame over the years. Between the morning workouts, classes, practices, film sessions and homework, he didn’t always have time to eat and eat often. All things considered, it’s not hard to figure out why it has taken so long for Chewins — entering his fifth year on campus — to get to this point.

But you see, none of that matters now. This offseason, he discovered an effective solution to his problem, something that finally helped him reach that elusive number. How exactly did he do it?

“Lots of PB&Js,” Chewins revealed Tuesday, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Chewins is a simple man. He has an established routine whenever he enters his kitchen, puts on his chef hat and prepares this delicacy. He begins with two slices of wheat bread, a staple of his grocery list and in his apartment. He’ll then add a layer of smooth, creamy peanut butter — never crunchy — and follows that up by slathering traditional grape jelly over the top. He eats at least three of these a day, sometimes more.

The thought of a 6-foot-8 left tackle throwing back PB&J sandwiches in his free time is hilarious, but also a necessary practice. It helps him account for the downtime between several main-course meals he consumes throughout the day and again around midnight, which typically draws a collective laugh from his roommates.

But when you’re a Big Ten offensive lineman with the body type that Chewins has — broad shoulders, a lean build and a propensity for shedding pounds quickly — eating and eating often can truly be a chore.

“After so long, you get used to it,” Chewins admitted Tuesday. “It’s just kinda like a schedule. ‘OK, I gotta eat every hour and a half,’ or ‘Hey, I’m sitting in class, I’ve gotta pack an extra two PB&Js.’ Sometimes it’s difficult and sometimes you may not feel like you need to eat, but your body burns so many calories. Sometimes, when you need to gain that weight, you gotta do what’s gotta be done.”

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This has been a multiyear mission for Chewins, dating back to 2015. Recruited by some colleges as a tight end and others as a defensive end, Michigan State coaches wanted to convert Chewins into an offensive lineman coming out of high school. He arrived on campus towering over his peers along the offensive line, while possessing the weight of a running back — no more than 230 pounds soaking wet.

His face was a little slimmer back then, his jawline a bit more defined. But MSU coaches saw a projectable height/frame combination, and believed Chewins could put on the necessary weight to play the position.

“Cole Chewins from Clarkston High School is a young man with great growth potential,” Mark Dantonio said in 2015, introducing that year’s recruiting class on National Signing Day. “He’s 6-6 or 6-7, much like Jack Conklin when he came in. Very athletic, defensive end, could really run, has good upper-body strength. … He will be an outstanding player for us.”

In order to get there, though, Chewins had work to do. And food to eat.

He spent most of his first year at Michigan State in the shadows, meeting with strength and conditioning coach Ken Mannie and the staff to put on weight. In 2016, midway through his second year on campus, Chewins was up to 280 pounds. He weighed in at 284 pounds a year later in 2017, his first year as a full starter, and began the 2018 season at 290 pounds.

The results were evident, relative to where he began. There’s only a 10-pound difference between 290 and 300 pounds. But Chewins was determined to reach this long-awaited milestone.

This number serves as a benchmark for offensive linemen. The position itself isn’t glamorous and doesn’t generate the traditional stats most people look for in this sport. In essence, an offensive lineman’s weight is the stat. A crucial one at that.

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For context, heading into the 2018 season, the average starting offensive lineman in the Big Ten weighed 309.9 pounds. Wisconsin’s starting offensive line had an average weight of 322 pounds. Penn State checked in at 321.6 pounds. Michigan weighed in at 320.6, and Ohio State’s starting offensive line weighed 310.6 pounds.

Michigan State’s average offensive lineman last year? Just 303.8.

In pass protection, that extra weight can often be the difference between maintaining a clean pocket for your quarterback or watching it collapse at the hands of a stronger defensive edge rusher. As a run blocker, weight can be the difference between picking up a crucial fourth-and-1 conversion to extend a late-game scoring drive or watching it get blown up at the line of scrimmage. The offensive line is so crucial to everything Michigan State wants to do offensively, so when the group struggles, the effects are evident.

Dantonio has often talked about how he prefers to run the ball 40 times per game, but that wasn’t much of an option last year. Michigan State finished 114th nationally in rushing yards per game and the offensive line bears much of the blame, failing to create consistent holes for running backs. And when the team couldn’t generate much on the ground on first and second down, it typically led to passing situations on third down, which became easy for defenses to sniff out and stop.

That’s why getting to 300 pounds, as small of an accomplishment as it might seem on the surface, is an important development for Chewins and this MSU offensive line. It’s an example of a player taking matters into his own hands after the way last season ended, working to get his body right for the sake of the team. That’s what needs to happen in order for the offense to improve.

Chewins understands this, and realizes his work doesn’t end in the spring. It’s why he ate again, soon after weighing in at 300 pounds for the very first time, and will continue to try to pack on weight.

Somewhere between those two wheat bread slices, underneath the layers of peanut butter and jelly he so often consumes, Chewins found a way to do his part. Now others will need to do the same.

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“No matter where you think you’re at, you always have something that you need to improve,” he said. “Last year, we weren’t productive like we wanted to be. We need to change that.”

(Top photo: Samuel Stringer / Getty Images)