Dabo Swinney reacts to Clemson football QB situation after win against Syracuse
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said quarterback DJ Uiagalelei is still the Tigers’ starter after benching the junior for freshman backup Cade Klubnik in Saturday’s 27-21 win over Syracuse.
Swinney pulled Uiagalelei out of the game after his third turnover of the day and put Klubnik, a true freshman and former five-star recruit, in with the Tigers trailing 21-10 in the third quarter.
Klubnik led three straight scoring drives to put Clemson up 27-21 and had a crucial two-point conversion pass, but Swinney said Uiagalelei hasn’t lost his starting job.
“Your best player sometimes can have a bad day,” Swinney said in his postgame interview with ABC. “He got out of rhythm, made some bad plays and we just needed a change. We showed we’ve got that guy that can come in. DJ’s our quarterback. There ain’t no question about that. That’s our guy. That’s our leader. You can write that right now — DJ is our guy. Now, he’s got to play better, and he will, but how about Cade Klubnik coming in there and leading these guys.
Here’s what else Swinney had to say in his postgame press conference after Clemson extended the nation’s longest active winning streak to 14 games and passed Florida State for the most consecutive home wins in ACC history at 38.
On the QB change
“Sometimes the ball doesn’t go in the basket. Sometimes Steph Curry goes 3 for 22. Sometimes it just won’t go in. Sometimes you’ve just got to give someone else an opportunity”
“As far as DJ, DJ’s our starter. DJ’s our leader. Ain’t nothing changed there. Y’all can go ahead and type that up … he’s earned that. I’ll go to battle with that guy every day. He needs to clean some things up”
“You’ve got to lead in different ways … (DJ) responded like the young man of character that he is”
“For Cade to be able to go in there and the team to see him be ready, I think that really serves as well as we move into the latter part of the season here”
“Putting (Cade) out there in that situation, we needed to let him settle in a little bit ... he made a couple nice plays, a few with his legs. Made a couple of bad ones, too, but overall just an amazing experience for him … a huge growth opportunity for him and for the team”
On the win against Syracuse
“Crazy game, special moment. I told the team if it was easy everybody would do it … a historic moment like that should be hard. Just an amazing character win by our staff”
“To be negative 3 in the (turnover) margin and win the game, that’s incredible. That doesn’t happen often.”
“It’s a four quarter game and we found a way to win it”
“I thought the Valley was great today ... traffic was backed up to Pendleton when we were coming in … early game, you could feel the energy”
“We felt like we could run the ball on these guys and we did”
“We’ve been going for 12 or 13 weeks straight (including camp) with these guys. This a great time for the break and we’ll use it well”
We didn’t want 34 (Syracuse running back Sean Tucker) to get it a lot but we didn’t execute well at times … you don’t realize how fast (Syracuse QB) Garrett Shrader is. You take a bad angle and he’ll score. He’s a problem … give him credit, he’s a fast kid, big and strong”
On the ACC record 38-game home win streak
“You don’t really set out to do something like that, you just go to work … you lose yourself in what you’re doing and look up and go, ‘Wow, that’s pretty cool’ … we had that opportunity to do that because of the ‘16 team, the ‘17 team, the ‘18 team, the ‘19 team, the ‘20 team, the ‘21 team and these guys right here”
“I think it’s important because it’s really just not this team. This team got to do something historic and cool … the only reason we’re in this situation is because of all the guys who got this started after we lost to Pittsburgh in ‘16”
On injured LB Barrett Carter
He was in (concussion) protocol this week and couldn’t clear it in time to play ... he was close ... looking forward to getting him back for Notre Dame
