After a tough loss on the road to Notre Dame, all eyes were on how Clemson would respond to adversity. With the spotlight cast upon quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei, there was some pressure to see how he could lead this offense out of the hole it was left in following the loss to the Irish. However, the junior signal caller displayed why he’s the starting quarterback for the Tigers in the 31-16 win over the Cardinals.
Uiagalelei spoke to the media after the win over Louisville and was candid that in the previous two games, he was not playing to the standard that he expects of himself.
“I haven’t been playing where I want to play at,” he said, “and the biggest thing for me is to go out there and just play my game, just go out there and have fun, have some joy and cut it loose.”
However, the strength of a great team lies in how it responds to adversity, and that’s exactly what the Tigers had to do coming into the game this week. Uiagalelei reflected on how the energy the team brought to practice this week seamlessly translated into its performance in the game.
“I thought we responded good,” he said. “I felt like we had a good week of practice. I felt like we came out and responded well. I felt like we played hard and that was the biggest thing. I felt like we played real hard. I thought everyone out there was out there playing and having fun. At the end of the day, I thought we were physical and we came out there and dominated.”
“I think the biggest thing was to come out here and I definitely think we wanted to play good tonight and we definitely wanted to play great,” he added. “We wanted to come out here and dominate and try to get back on track for how we play offense.”
According to the signal caller, energy is everything. From practice to the win over Louisville, the team brought the energy this week and that made all the difference in the quarterback’s eyes. Going forward, Uiagalelei emphasized the importance of harnessing this type of energy and preparation for the final stretch of the season.
“It definitely was a great week,” he said. “The biggest thing was the energy was up. The energy was great. Everyone was executing well. We have energy and people out there want to practice, that’s the biggest thing. For us, we will be able to harness that and keep that going. We just need to see when we put weeks together like that, with that type of energy, that type of preparation, that type of focus, then the sky’s the limit for us.”
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