Cade Klubnik dropped back and let one fly on the game’s third play. On the other end was true freshman wide receiver Bryant Wesco. In what has been a long time coming, a Tiger wideout had smoked his defender and was wide open on the other end of a long touchdown pass.
From that moment, the rout was on.
It was not just that Clemson beat a good Appalachian State team. It was the complete dominating thoroughness in which they did it. It was the incarnation of Clemson football that fans had been thirsting for over the past three seasons, and in the span of three hours, those demons were all cast out in a raucous offensive avalanche that buried the Mountaineers so convincingly that records were broken in the process.
Records that had stood for a long time.
When you break down the numbers behind the 66-20 beating that Clemson handed their battered visitors from Boone, what the Tigers did on Saturday night is put into even more shocking perspective. For Cade Klubnik, it was the moment everyone waited for all last season that never came; a coming out party that felt long overdue. For head coach Dabo Swinney, perhaps it was vindication for everything he has been saying.
Either way, it was a lot of fun to watch.
From that first 76-yard airstrike from Klubnik to Wesco, to a staggering 35-point first quarter, 56-point first half, and a night in which the offense put up over 700 total yards, it looked like for a moment in time that Clemson football circa 2012 to 2020 had been reincarnated. If it has, let’s hope it sticks around for a while.
Clemson tallied 712 total yards. It was only the seventh time in the history of the program that plateau has been reached, and the first since 2019 when Trevor Lawrence and company put 702 on Wofford. The 712 yards and 460 passing yards tallied by the Tigers are both sixth-most in program history for a single game.
The game was the 25th in Clemson history with more than 60 points scored, including the ninth time in the 16-year plus tenure of Swinney and was good for the 14th highest point total ever scored by a Tiger team in a game. Clemson was finding the endzone at such a staggering pace that the Tigers scored a touchdown on their first eight possessions, something never before done by a Clemson team. They were not held out of the endzone until the first drive of the second half.
The 56 points scored by Clemson in the first half is a new program record, surpassing the 52 scored against Georgia Tech in 2020. It’s 525 first half yards are also the most in any half in program history, surpassing the previous mark of 487 compiled against Duke in 2012.
And then there was the performance by the much-and often-maligned Cade Klubnik. Cade finished the game with 378 yards on 24 of 26 passing for a pass efficiency rating of 277.9 which shattered the old record of 261.9 held by Tajh Boyd against Syracuse in 2013. His 378 yards is 19th-most in a single game in school history. He only played two quarters.
Klubnik accounted for seven total touchdowns in all, passing for five and rushing for two more. It was the first time a Clemson quarterback had accounted for so many scores since Boyd tallied eight against N.C. State in 2011. Per ESPN Stats and Info, Cade’s performance was the first time an FBS quarterback has passed for five touchdowns, rushed for two or more, and held a 90 percent or better completion percentage in the same game in the last 25 years.
Staggering statistics.
And then there were the receivers. It was the first time since 2019 that Clemson has had two 100-yard receivers in the same game. That year, Tee Higgins and Justyn Ross did it against South Carolina. On Saturday, it was true freshman Bryant Wesco with three catches for 130 yards and tight end Jake Briningstool with seven receptions for 100. The duo combined to catch three touchdowns. Wesco tied Artavis Scott, Ross, and Cole Turner for the fewest number of career games (2) needed to record a 100-yard performance.
Wesco’s 76-yard touchdown grab was also the longest by a Clemson freshman since Tee Higgins’ 78-yard scoring grab against the Citadel in 2017. It was also the longest pass play from scrimmage by any Clemson team since Lawrence connected with Amari Rodgers for an 83-yard passing score against Georgia Tech in 2020.
There were many more insane statistical nuggets, but everyone should get the general idea. It was a blur of offensive efficiency. And that is not to leave the defense out, which held App. State to just seven second half points despite playing back-ups and walk-ons for most of the final two periods.
As beatings go, this was about as good as they come. There will be detractors who point to the opponent and dismiss what Cade Klubnik and the Clemson Tigers did on Saturday but forget that the Mountaineers are themselves a very good football team. The score is no indictment of them, but simply, Appalachian State ran into a pissed off buzzsaw.
What everyone saw in Death Valley was over three years of frustration released at one time, like a volcano whose pressure had reached a tipping point, and at some point it was going to erupt. The Clemson offense blew its top on Saturday, and unfortunately for App. State, they were the ones caught in its path of destruction.
Will the Tigers be able to sustain such offensive proliferation going forward? Who knows. It is nothing that be said for certain until we see it happen. But it was certainly a major stride in the right direction. It this becomes the rule and not the exception, then come November what happened in Atlanta on August 31st will be nothing by a distantly unpleasant memory.
