D.J. Uiagalelei is considered QB1 for the Clemson Tigers in 2022-23, but he could be facing some competition for snaps. Five-star recruit Cade Klubnik is looking very good early on and he appears to be handling the transition to the college game with ease.
Most importantly, he's impressing head coach Dabo Swinney, who says Klubnik is showing the ability to “slow things down”.
“Just more confident, you know, more knowledgeable,” Swinney said Monday after practice. “Third time getting the installation and you can tell he's obviously putting a ton of work in on his own, which probably just kind of how he's wired. Cade Klubnik is a football-junky type guy and really good leader. Really it's just slowed down a little bit for him. He knows right where to go with the ball and when he makes mistakes, he can process it right away. So he's just, as we said the other day, he's the best we've seen him. He's the best version of him. So he's done what we've asked him to do.”
Uiagalelei was the starter for Clemson last season as a freshman, throwing for nine touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Although Cade Klubnik is putting pressure on him, Swinney believes that the number of mistakes Uiagalelei made was because there was a lack of talent around him:
“Last year, as I've said many times, I've never had a young quarterback, first-year starter who didn't make mistakes, but the past young quarterbacks that I have had the last two young quarterbacks, Deshaun Watson and Trevor, they made mistakes, but we were much better around them.”
Clemson begins their regular season against Georgia Tech on September 5th. Uiagalelei likely starts but Klubnik is certainly making a case to get some playing time, too.
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