This Week Especially, Swinney's Glad He Landed 'Special, Special Talent' in Uiagalelei
The legend of the next great Clemson quarterback is underway as D.J. Uiagalelei prepares for his second career start and his first road start Saturday night when the No 1. Tigers visit No. 4 Notre Dame in South Bend.
Head coach Dabo Swinney has all the confidence in the world in his fill-in QB1 as Trevor Lawrence recovers from Covid-19. During his Tuesday morning press conference, he took a trip down memory lane of recruiting "Big Cinco".
"We don't waste a lot of time in recruiting. We'll check on every great player but we don't like to practice recruiting, that's for sure," Swinney said. "But in D.J.'s case, Brent (Venables) was actually out recruiting a linebacker."
Bosco Coach Jason Negro told Venables 'Hey, I kind of got this quarterback and he's pretty doggone good," he said. At the time, Uiagalelei had probably had over 70 offers but hadn't received one from Clemson.
Bosco's head coach made it known to the staff that D.J. really liked Clemson, and eventually, Clemson QB coach/passing game coordinator Brandon Streeter went out to California. He started recruiting Uiagalelei and getting to know him on a personal level.
"You could just talk five seconds to D.J. and tell how honest and how sincere he is and why he was interested in Clemson. It was probably that summer when he came to our camp when I realized we had a real shot at this kid," Swinney said. "He's a special, special talent and he told me pretty early he felt Clemson was where he wanted to be but we had to go through the process and wanted to make sure."
The true freshman shined in his first start last week against Boston College connecting on 30-of-41 passing attempts for 342 yards and two touchdowns. He also scooted 30 yards to pay dirt on a crucial fourth and one in the third quarter.
Swinney said Uiagalelei is a very intentional young man and that he's really, really glad Clemson was able to get him, but he realized something was different about him when Uiagalelei attended the Tigers' summer camp. He had so much zip on the ball that Swinney had to change up the receiver line to make sure the right kids could handle Uiagalelei's passes.
"Somebody's gonna get hurt," Swinney recalled. "He can't just be throwing to anybody."
