Clemson had another brutal loss on Saturday, falling on the road to NC State 24-17 in what feels like classic Clemson fashion in 2023.
Following the game, Dabo Swinney, as usual, met with the media to field questions and share his thoughts on the game. During this, Swinney assessed the performance of starting quarterback Cade Klubnik, who once again struggled.
“He did a lot of good things. Obviously, he made the right read on the tipped ball. I mean, it was a really good read,” Swinney said. “It was coming open really nice, good design. (Phil) Mafah is who he was getting ready to trigger the ball to. I mean, he’s expecting, hands down, and the guy got a hand on it. It’s a game of inches, so that was a critical error. Like I said, I don’t know what else he could do right there. He made the right decision, and he came back and made some good plays.”
In this matchup, Klubnik completed 33-of-50 passing for 263 yards, throwing two interceptions. His first interception was a bad overthrow that went right to a Wolfpack defender. The second came off a tipped ball that NC State linebacker Payton Wilson took to the house.
Two crucial mistakes that led to scores.
“He missed a couple early. He missed a little swing route early in the game, but he came back and hit a few of those,” Swinney said. “He gave us a chance. There was one other screen on third down and maybe 5 that he just needed to probably get a little more air on it, and we had it. It was a crack screen. I think it was Beaux (Collins) coming across, and the ball got knocked down. He was under a little bit of pressure, but maybe that play right there to get it to him. But we’ll watch the tape.”
“Again, he battled his butt off and he gave us an opportunity, made some good decisions,” Swinney said of Klubnik. “I thought he was seeing it well. We had one big drop that could’ve helped us there on that last punt that we had to punt. That hurt. But just not good enough by me, mainly.”
Klubnik’s next opportunity to turn things around comes against Notre Dame this Saturday at Death Valley, with kickoff set for 12 p.m. on ABC.