ATHENS — Based on quarterback production last season and throughout their careers, Georgia will have a significant advantage at that critical position when it meets Clemson in the season opener Saturday in Atlanta. That’s what the numbers say.
But the Tigers’ brain trust will tell you that Cade Klubnik is not the same quarterback that played his first full season as a starter last year.
“He’s grown,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said Tuesday. “(Last year) made him better. He’s in a good spot. He grew a lot last year in how he finished, and he carried that over into the offseason. He’s really established himself as a leader on this team, and I’m proud of him.”
Klubnik’s coaches and teammates agree that his improvement has been significant in the eight months since the Tigers’ 38-35 comeback win over Kentucky in the Gator Bowl.
“Now we need to see from him Saturday what we’ve seen from practice,” Swinney said of his quarterback. “You know, take care of the ball, make good decisions, manage the game and be opportunistic with his legs. Let it rip, man!”
Klubnik, a 6-foot-2, 205-pound junior, arrived at Clemson as a 5-star prospect from Austin, Texas. He was expected to carry the torch of so many other great quarterbacks who came before him.
That hasn’t exactly come to pass.
The Tigers managed to win nine games last season, including five in a row to cap the 2023 season. A team doesn’t do that without at least adequate quarterback play. But as No. 14 Clemson prepares to meet No. 1 Georgia in the Aflac Kickoff game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (noon, ABC), it knows something well north of adequate will be required to pull off the upset.
There have been signs throughout his career that Klubnik is capable. As a freshman, he relieved a struggling D.J. Uiagalelei in the third series of the 2022 ACC Championship game and piloted the Tigers to a 39-10 victory over North Carolina with 279 yards passing and a touchdown. After Uiagalelei entered the transfer portal, Klubnik started in the Orange Bowl against Tennessee. Klubnik threw for 320 yards but was sacked four times and threw a pair of interceptions in a 31-10 loss.
Earning his place as QB1 last season, Klubnik completed 63.9% of his passes for 2,844 yards with 19 touchdowns and nine interceptions. But the offense was slow to get moving on the way to a 4-4 start.
That was Clemson’s first season under offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, which may have contributed to some of Klubnik’s early struggles. But both the quarterback and the Tigers’ offense were much better in the second half of the season. By all accounts, the improvement has continued.
“Yeah, I think we’ve had kind of a great energy to us all year, and especially this fall camp and this summer,” Klubnik said Wednesday. “I think we’re a really tight group. It’s fun to come back and play another season with a lot of guys that I’ve already played with, you know? So, I’m just really excited. I think there’s a great pulse to us, for sure.”
A few things have happened to make the Tigers feel better about their offense. They believe they’ve added some playmakers. The biggest buzz in camp has been the play of freshman receivers T.J. Moore and Bryant Westco. And dating to last season, they began to rely more on a more physical style of play. That started with going to running back Phil Mafah, a 6-1, 230-pounder who’s back for his senior season. It continued with Riley encouraging Klubnik to run with the football. Thanks to a whopping 28 sacks, the quarterback finished with only 180 yards on the ground but scored four touchdowns.
Klubnik’s mobility has captured the Bulldogs’ attention. Asked what stood out to him most about the Clemson quarterback, Georgia defensive lineman Mykel Williams said, “how slippery he is.”
“He finds his way out of the pocket – a lot,” Williams continued. “He extends plays. That’s the thing about Cade, he’s slippery and hard to run down.”
Said Georgia coach Kirby Smart: “He has the ability to make plays on his feet. He has more weapons around him, and I think he’s a lot more comfortable now in their offense. You can see that throughout the year as the season went on, how much more comfortable he got, especially after they started going more to Phil as the feature back and became more physical. This year, they have Matt Luke (as offensive line coach), who was with us. I think that makes them even more versatile.”
While Klubnik’s improvement has been significant, it needed to be. Entering the season, Pro Football Focus rated him No. 45 among power-conference quarterbacks. According to PFF’s analytics, Klubnik ranked 102nd in FBS in passing (63.9), graded over 69.9 just once all season and 60% of his attempts were nine yards or less. More traditional statistics had the Tigers’ offense ranked 50th nationally in both scoring and total yards. Clemson also committed 22 turnovers, which was more than 45 FBS teams.
“We were just really, really poor in ball security last year,” Swinney said. “Not only was it the turnovers, but where they happened. It was just catastrophic. A lot of them were in the red zone. You put drives together and get no points, that’s just so costly. And it’s deflating. It’s hard to overcome those things. So, just way too many. Hopefully when the season is over, that’s an area we’re much improved in. If we are, then we’ll have a better year.
That’s not all on Klubnik, but he has worked extremely hard to improve. He attended the Manning Passing Academy this summer along with Georgia’s Carson Beck. He has spent almost every waking moment in the Tigers’ football facility, either passing to teammates, studying game video or his playbook or talking to Riley about offensive schemes and concepts.
The Tigers fully expect Klubnik to play better and he does, too. But will it be enough to compete a Georgia defense that ranked in the top 10 nationally in several defensive categories.
Klubnik can’t wait to find out.
“Georgia is an incredible opponent. It’s definitely a huge honor for us to be able to face such a great team like that in an opener,” Klubnik said. “Coach Swinney said, ‘Hey, you know, there are teams all around the country that are working their butt off for 12 weeks straight to go play a team like this in the playoffs, right? We can start out with them in a regular-season game.’ So, you know, to have that right out of the gate is huge and definitely a great way to kick-start the season.”
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