Football is a game of bouncing back and responding, and for Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik, it is no different.
A 34-3 loss to the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs will have different rights and wrongs of what occurred on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, and for Klubnik, it’s the same. The junior spoke to the media on Wednesday afternoon for the first time since Saturday’s loss.
Despite a disappointing loss and one that could seem crushing to teams, the surplus of leadership on the team has taken a different approach to it, with Klubnik saying that players had more confidence in the team after the opening loss.
“The message has been, ‘Hey. We’ve got everybody that we need. We’ve got all of the talent we need but just fine-tuning those details in certain spots, but it’s not like we are missing something,” he said. “I feel like we have everything we need and we just have to go execute.”
“A couple of guys have said it, and it’s weird to hear probably from y’all’s point of view, but I remember Tristan [Leigh] saying it first, saying like ‘Hey. I believe in this team more now than I did before the game,’” Klubnik added. “So that’s the kind of confidence that we have in this team.”
“I think that I took steps from last year to this year in terms of managing the game,” he said. “Obviously, there are things that I need to get better at, but overall, I feel like I made a big jump from last year.”
Game management was something that Klubnik highlighted to the media on Wednesday. He retold a story during a conversation with one of the Clemson coaches, where he told Klubnik that managing the game as best as he could would give the Tigers the best shot of winning.
“So that’s kind of been my goal,” he said. “And that was my goal Week 1. It’s been my goal every week, just managing the game the best I can.
Cade Klubnik
One of the things Klubnik highlighted as something to work on was his ability with his legs. The Austin, Texas, native did not showcase much on the ground in a pass-heavy performance on Saturday, but it is something that he wants to take into other weeks.
“When opportunity comes, kind of letting my legs help us out a little bit,” Klubnik said. “I’d say that’s definitely one of the big ones, for sure.”
Something that has helped Klubnik through the process has been the elimination of the usage of social media, which is something that most of the team does, whether win or lose. In his first season as a starter, he used it to help remain “clear-headed”.
“That was something that I learned in a few losses last year, that I kept doing that when we starting winning,” he said. “Like when we started going on a stretch and starting winning big games and stuff like that last year, I downloaded social media and started to see all this stuff.”
“In order to truly be successful,” he added, “you got to clear all of that out all the time.”
While Clemson’s next opponent, Appalachian State, does not have a ranking next to its name, the Mountaineers are one of college football’s wild cards, always giving top 25 schools shocking runs, most recently taking down No. 6 Texas A&M in 2022. Klubnik knows who his next opponent is, and has shifted his focus on the home opener.
“They’re a very well-coached, very well-disciplined team,” Klubnik said. “They’re not the biggest guys in the world, but they’re very physical and they’re very active up front playing that three down front. They’re going play the whole game with everything they have, and we know that. They’re going to come in here with everything they have and they’re going to give everything they got, and we are going to do the same.”
Cade Klubnik
What excites the Clemson quarterback the most for Saturday is the return to Memorial Stadium, which serves as a great advantage for the Tigers to get their first win of the season.
“I love playing at home, especially in a night game like that,” Klubnik said. “I’m excited to obviously be back in Death Valley, you only get seven times doing it, so excited to get back there and it’s going to be awesome.”
Klubnik and the team will look to see a different result in Week 2, as the Tigers will kick off their home opener at 8 p.m. on Saturday.
