Dabo Swinney Responds to Former Quarterback's Comments About Clemson

Clemson football's head coach was gracious when asked about former player DJ Uiagalelei's criticisms of the team.

The Clemson Tigers are undergoing an offensive change for the upcoming 2023 football season. With a new starting quarterback in Cade Klubnik and a new offensive coordinator in Garrett Riley, there's plenty to look forward to. However, some are still focused on the failings of what happened in 2022.

Last year's starting quarterback DJ Uiagalelei-now the QB at Oregon State-made some comments recently to The Athletic that were received fairly negatively by the Clemson fanbase. “I didn’t want to do what I was doing at Clemson,” Uiagalelei said. “I didn’t really like what we did there scheme-wise. I didn’t think we did very much. I thought it was very basic. It didn’t help me out as a quarterback and play to my strengths. I wanted to go somewhere that would play to my strengths and go somewhere that would develop me for the NFL. Play-action, work under center, throw the ball deep.”

Obviously with two former quarterbacks starting in the NFL, including recent No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence, many would disagree that Clemson is a place where you're not going to be developed in the right way for a professional career. 

As usual, the head man in Clemson responded with class and even defended his former player when he spoke at the Rock Hill stop of Clemson’s annual Prowl & Growl summer speaking tour. “I love DJ,” Swinney said. “Ain’t nothing changed with that. I’m just pulling for him to do awesome and I think he will. I’m proud of him. He’s a graduate of Clemson. At the end of the day, it didn’t go as well as you’d hoped. Sometimes that’s just life, you know? At the end of the day he was 22-6 as a starter, had two double-overtime losses on the road, a 1-point loss at home, a pick-6 loss in a one-score game against the national champions so you know, it's a very small margin for error. But he was 22-6 as a starter here and part of two ACC Championship teams."

Quite the response towards a player whose career probably hasn't gone exactly the way he'd hoped out of high school. If DJ sees or hears these comments it almost feels as if Dabo is reminding him that, while his time here had plenty of ups and downs, the quarterback isn't, and wasn't a failure.