Cade Klubnik looks to add maturity and knowledge to his game

Klubnik has looked at his mistakes from last season.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Mar 07 07:00:03 GMT-04:00 2024

CLEMSON – It’s time for the mature dog to show up.

Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik’s performance last season was up and down. There were times when he looked like the former 5-star he is, and there were times when he looked like a young quarterback undergoing growing pains. He knows – and the coaches hope – that he takes a step forward this spring and uses that momentum heading into summer and fall camp as the beginning of a stellar season.

For head coach Dabo Swinney, that means avoiding the “disasters” that plagued his young quarterback last season. Swinney said Klubnik was responsible for four of his interceptions, and eight of the sacks he endured were due to his decision-making.

“The biggest thing was too many disasters, as we call them – sacks and tackles for loss and turnovers,” Swinney said. “We’ll live with four interceptions. He throws four interceptions next year, hey sign me up for that. I’ll be a happy guy. But he had way too many tackles for loss. What that speaks to is pocket presence, pocket awareness. That’s where he’s got to get better. He’s got to take care of the ball better.”

I was watching practice the other day, and someone said, "What is it you said about him last year? He's like a puppy? Well, we need the mature dog to show up."

Klubnik spent time after the season watching film, looking for areas where he wanted to improve.

“I think there's a lot of things that I've looked back on this last season and reevaluate myself. I think one of the biggest things is kind of post-snap recognition,” Klubnik said. “So in just my second year in the offense, I actually haven't had that yet. So to truly be in a system longer than a year and look back at things that I've learned from last year and all my notes that I took last year and everything like that, and actually incorporate those into this year, I think that my post-snap recognition is going to get better with just decision making, when to come off of stuff and when I can truly attack things a little bit stronger and stuff like that.

“Being a little bit more aggressive in my decisions because I've just been in the system now for a little bit. I think that's going to be huge for me. With that comes quicker reads, so it's going to make the ball get out of my hand faster, more explosive plays and ultimately less sacks. I'm getting the ball out of my hand, so that's going to be huge. Just continue to work on pocket presence and then just situational awareness.”

Klubnik said he spent a lot of time watching film.

“I definitely went game by game, and then I had a lot of cutups made for me that I'm kind of still watching,” Klubnik said. “I'll go watch tonight. Just certain cutups throughout the year, whether it was missed opportunities or whatever. I have tons of them that some of our guys have made for me, so it's been really good. So, after this I'm kind of just knocking away. Well, before spring started I watched last year's games and now I'm kind of knocking away those cutups. So it's been really good, really helpful for me.”