During The Huddle: 2022 Football Schedule Reveal on ACC Network this week, when talking about Clemson, ACCN analysts Eric Mac Lain, E.J. Manuel and Mark Richt discussed the Tigers’ quarterback situation and the looming competition between rising junior D.J. Uiagalelei and five-star freshman Cade Klubnik that all eyes will be on this spring.
Manuel voiced confidence in Uiagalelei, despite the former five-star prospect’s struggles as Clemson’s starting signal-caller last season.
After throwing for a total of 781 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions while completing 69.4 percent of his passes across two starts against Boston College and Notre Dame as a true freshman in 2020, Uiagalelei had a 55.6 completion percentage, 2,246 passing yards and nine touchdown passes with 10 interceptions in 13 starts last season.
“I’m still a believer that D.J. can get himself out of that whole,” Manuel said. “He has all the tools. You can’t play that well, going back to the 2020 season against Notre Dame, against BC, and then not get back to that. So, I still believe that he can do it.”
Uiagalelei will be pushed this spring by Klubnik, a five-star prospect from Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, who enrolled at Clemson in January ranked as the top quarterback in the 2022 recruiting class by Sports Illustrated, PrepStar, Rivals and the 247Sports Composite rankings.
Klubnik, who earned Gatorade Player of the Year honors in Texas for 2021 and was named the All-American Bowl’s National High School Player of the Year, comes to Clemson with no shortage of accolades and hype.
But Richt expressed caution about Klubnik going into his freshman season, considering the struggles he witnessed from Matthew Stafford as a freshman at Georgia in 2006 when Richt was the head coach there.
That season, Stafford — who went on to be drafted 1st overall by the Detroit Lions in the 2009 NFL Draft — completed 52.7 percent of his passes for 1,749 yards and seven touchdowns with 13 picks.
“The thing about Cade – true freshman, right – it’s hard to be great as a true freshman,” Richt said. “I mean, Matthew Stafford, first pick of the draft, he struggled his freshman year. He did some great things, he did some not-so-great things. So, it’s hard to be a consistent winner when your quarterback is not consistent.”
Regardless of who takes the field as Clemson’s starting quarterback next season, Mac Lain acknowledged that the Tigers (10-3, 6-2 ACC in 2021) need more production at the position in order for Dabo Swinney’s program to return to the standard it is accustomed to after seeing its streak of six straight ACC titles and six consecutive College Football Playoff appearances come to an end last season.
“I think everyone can sit here and say that the quarterback position is going to have to be better. That’s not a knock, it’s not being rude, it just is what it is,” Mac Lain said. “And when you have the most important position on the field not meeting the level of expectation that has been set by others, you see a ‘down’ year. 10 wins, 11 straight seasons there.
“So, for Clemson to be able to get back to where they expect to be, where they want to be, where the fans want to be, something is going to have to happen at the quarterback position – whether it’s D.J. Uiagalalei increasing his play to the flashes that we saw in 2020, or is it a change? Is someone else going to make the most of their opportunity and be able to get Clemson back to where they need to be?”
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