In Clemson’s 17-14 victory over Syracuse on Friday, quarterback DJ Uiagalelei had what head coach Dabo Swinney said was arguably his best game so far this season. The starter left Friday night’s contest completing 21-of-34 passes for 181 yards, one touchdown, and rushed for 26 yards.
Offensive coordinator and tight ends coach Tony Elliott echoed Swinney’s sentiments towards their first-year starter in Uiagalelei. Elliott was pleased with the steps his quarterback has taken towards improvement versus Syracuse and believes Uiagalelei has all the pieces he needs to make this offense finally come together and be something special.
“I thought DJ did a good job of taking care of the ball, first and foremost, that’s two weeks in a row with no turnovers, which is big, gives you an opportunity to win,” Elliott said. “I thought he put the ball in places where it needed to be, and we just didn’t come down with the catches. I can only recall two throws that he missed: he missed a hitch route that hit the ground and then there was a deep ball down the sideline that we didn’t connect to Ross on. Other than that, he put the ball in places for the guys to make catches, he ran the ball when we needed him to run the ball.”
“Obviously, he had to move a lot in the pocket, and he wasn’t able to get settled on some things from a protection standpoint, which is always tough on a quarterback, especially in some third down situations. We’re turning guys loose, not completely loose, but giving up pressure. Overall, I thought DJ, man he continues to get better. Obviously, numbers are not necessarily where you want them to be, but at the end of the day, he’s managing the game the way we’re asking him to, he got better in giving the guy’s opportunities to make catches, and we just didn’t make the catches for him.”
Uiagalelei left the Carrier Dome encouraged yet also hungry for more. The California-native was pleased with the improvements he saw on the field, but knows he is still nowhere near where he wants to be for this year’s team.
“I thought I played ok,” Uiagalelei said. “I thought it was definitely probably the best game I’ve played this season, but there’s still a lot to go, there’s still a lot that I know I can get better at, and still nowhere [near] where I want to be at and know what I’m capable of playing, but it’s definitely getting better though.”
While Uiagalelei showed some steps in the right direction, Clemson’s offense as a whole struggled with small errors that continued to pile up. Something Uiagalelei says comes down to coming together as a team and collectively finishing drives.
“You always want to make those plays. It’s kind of those little setbacks right there,” Uiagalelei said. “It’s just little things that we can overcome and be able to take away, not kill ourselves and shoot ourselves in the foot. That’s a big thing we’ve been talking about in the locker room. Man, just clean up on some stuff right there. We just gotta be able to come together and make a collective decision to be able to go out there and finish drives. If we didn’t have to deal with that stuff right there, I don’t know, who knows how well those drives would be moving.”
“Just little stuff like that sucks, but it is what it is. You can’t do anything about it now. We gotta move on to this week. We got a challenge with Pittsburgh coming up next. We got a big challenge. We’re ready to accept the challenge and get back to work this week.”
Clemson travels to Heinz Field on Saturday, October 23, to take on another fellow ACC foe in the Pittsburgh Panthers. Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30pm on ESPN.