Swinney on QB Situation Moving Forward

After starting the season off strong, quarterback for the Clemson Tigers, DJ Uiagalelei's play has been less than stellar in his last two starts--both of which resulted in the junior being benched in favor of true freshman Cade Klubnik.

However, as he has for all of the 2022 season, head coach Dabo Swinney found himself again having to defend his starting quarterback, stating that not all of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the quarterback.

"(DJ Uiagalelei) did not play well at Notre Dame. He played better than (vs. Syracuse) but he did not play well," Swinney said. "Reality is he can't punt protect, and he don't stop the run. I do like how he finished the game and competed. That's why the team loves him.

"He would be the first one to tell you that he's got to play better. He's got to get back on track to how he played the first seven games. That's just the reality of the situation. He's got to be accountable to that and he is. Watched every play with him and he knows what he's got to do better. And if he doesn't play better, got to give somebody else a chance. That's just where we are. It's real-time as we move forward."

Even with the knowledge that he needs better play out of Uiagalelei moving forward, and even with Uiagalelei acknowledging that fact himself, Swinney admitted that the Tigers' coaching staff still needs to find more opportunities for Klubnik in their upcoming games--preferably not in the bad situations he has been forced into.

"We need to get him more opportunities. He hasn't really had that. We've put him in some tough situations," Swinney said. "And that was a tough play the other night. And he'll learn from that. Definitely, we have a lot of confidence in him. He's a great, young, player."

"When you've won 14 in a row and you have someone who is your leader who has a bad game, you don't panic and you keep moving. This past week he didn't play bad but he didn't play well. We need him to play well. It'll be a big day on Saturday. All of us need to do well, players and coaches. Only thing worse than 8-1 is 8-2. We want to get to 9-1 and be who I know we are."

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