Coming out of St. John Bosco High School in California, D.J. Uiagalelei was considered a five-star quarterback and ranked as a top-three national prospect regardless of position in the 2020 class by both 247Sports and Rivals.
However, the other major recruiting service — ESPN — was lower on Uiagalelei, rating him as a four-star prospect and ranking him outside the top 30 overall players in the country for his class.
ESPN analyst and national recruiting director Tom Luginbill pointed that out this week during an appearance on the “Out of Bounds” show with Bo Bounds on ESPN The Zone 105.9, adding that he believes Dabo Swinney and the Tigers missed on Uiagalelei during the recruiting process.
“Listen, for the first time in Dabo Swinney’s tenure, and I mean this sincerely, and I felt this way when the guy came out — it’s one of the reasons why not only did we not have him as a top-five player, a top-10 player; I think he was our 38th-ranked overall player — they missed on D.J. Uiagalelei,” Luginbill said.
“And that is the first time in really three cycles that Clemson has not hit on a quarterback. And all of the sudden, when that happens, you become mortal pretty quickly, and now they’re having to work around all that.”
In nine games as a sophomore this season, Uiagalelei has completed 56.2 percent of his passes for 1,511 yards and seven touchdowns with six interceptions while rushing for 239 yards and four touchdowns.
Luginbill thinks it’s apparent why the Tigers (6-3, 5-2 ACC) are having a relatively down season, when you take into account Uiagalelei’s struggles as well as the key departures on offense from last season and the offensive line issues.
“Now, that [Clemson missing on Uiagalelei] happened to coincide with the departure of Travis Etienne and Amari Rodgers, and then you couple that with a very below average to average at best offensive line group, it’s kind of obvious to see what’s happened in Clemson,” Luginbill said. “But that doesn’t mean that they’re all of a sudden going to regress and go back to being a 7-5 team for the next 20 years. But I think you’ve got to acknowledge some of the events that kind of came together at once, and on top of that, the most important position in football, they may have missed on.”
Clemson Variety & Frame is doing their part to help bring you some classic new barware and help one of the local businesses that helps make Clemson special.
Order your Nick’s barware and do your part to help. #SaveNicks
