Cade Klubnik proud of Clemson's finish in topping Gamecocks to complete 4-0 November

Cade Klubnik earned his first win in the rivalry in his first start in the rivalry.

by Ariana Pensy - Correspondent - Wed Nov 29 07:00:05 GMT-04:00 2023

In sophomore quarterback Cade Klubnik’s first start against South Carolina, he defeated them 16-7, although the offense was not involved in the one Tiger touchdown of the game. Despite having a career-low in passing yards in a game he has started with only 100, Clemson relied on their running game to pull out the win.

“Just super proud of the way our offensive line played, our running backs played,” Klubnik said. “Had a couple opportunities to kind of get moving myself and it was just really good.”

The only other game this season where Klubnik had under 110 passing yards was against Notre Dame, the game that started the winning streak for Clemson. While the Tigers went 1-2 in the month of October, they finished the regular season on a four-game win streak and undefeated in the month of November.

“At the end of the day, a win’s a win, and it’s just, that’s a big win for us,” Klubnik said. “4-0 in November and I’m just so proud of this team, the way we finished and it’s a great win.”

In total, Clemson had 219 rushing yards, its sixth game with over 200 rushing yards. Junior running back Phil Mafah finished with the most with 89 yards while fellow junior back Will Shipley had 80 yards. Another 52 yards came from Klubnik; that yardage was his highest rushing total of the season. He feels this is an area he continued to work on the entire season and he is now taking advantage of more rushing opportunities.

“I feel like that’s kind of just something, you just kind of build throughout the season,” Klubnik said. “I feel like whenever opportunities have come, (I) kind of take advantage of those.”

Besides turnovers, another factor that contributed to Clemson’s early struggles was special teams, specifically the kicker. True freshman Robert Gunn III had difficulty early with kicking field goals, leading to graduate Jonathan Weitz coming in. Weitz also had a number of struggles but had the best game of his career in his final regular season game. Against the Gamecocks, he hit all three field goals, and each was over 40 yards; his long was 50 yards. Particularly after the challenges Weitz has faced, Klubnik was proud to see him step up in such a big way and especially in this rivalry game.

“So proud of him. He shared something really special on Monday (in) one of our senior leadership meetings,” Klubnik said. “I’m just really proud of him, just a guy that’s had a roller-coaster career, literally, and to come back and do that against this team, just so proud of him. I’m so happy for him”

With this victory, the Tigers prevented South Carolina from being bowl-eligible as they finished the season with only five wins. This was redemption for the Gamecocks potentially knocking Clemson out of the playoffs last season. While there is a lot of focus on this for fans, Klubnik said the Tigers are just “focused on us.”