Inside Cade Klubniks road to living out his dream as Clemsons QB1: Hes special

DANIA BEACH, Fla. — Cade Klubnik had been Clemson’s starting quarterback for less than 24 hours. His first official start was still almost a month away.

But the day after coming off the bench to ignite the Tigers’ offense with 279 passing yards in a 39-10 rout of North Carolina in the ACC title game, he sat down with his parents at Rick Irwin’s, a steakhouse in Clemson, to start the first day of a brand-new existence and celebrate the successes of a memorable weekend.

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His dad, Tod Klubnik, a retired software marketer and salesman, had to ask the biggest question: What does it feel like?

For the better part of the past decade, Cade Klubnik had dreamed of playing out his college career at Clemson. He loved Dabo Swinney long before he first spoke to Clemson’s head coach, and the program eventually ticked all the boxes on the checklist for where the five-star prospect would land.

Coaches who cared about him as a person? Check.

A culture where he felt like a good fit? Check.

Established success and continuity? Check.

Oh, and it wasn’t too cold.

“Cade is a southern boy,” Tod Klubnik said.

Check.

He would have loved to stay in Texas, where he built his own legend as a high school quarterback at Austin Westlake, following in the footsteps of famed alums like Drew Brees, Nick Foles and Sam Ehlinger, but none of the programs in the state checked his boxes.

Now, less than a year after enrolling at his dream school, he was its starting quarterback, setting off a chain of events that sent another five-star, his friend and Clemson’s incumbent starter DJ Uiagalelei, into the transfer portal and off to Oregon State.

So what’s it feel like? Is it possible to shrug off a “dream come true?”

Klubnik was unfazed by his sudden change in status. He quickly moved on to other matters: his upcoming finals, plans for his flight home for Christmas, and plans for the Orange Bowl in Miami.

Now, that game will be his first career start. His goal this season was to learn. He has done that, but he also has done enough to become the starter at a program in the midst of 12 consecutive double-digit win seasons.

“I’ve learned so much from where I was in the first game to now,” he said. “I scored on my first drive and didn’t score again until the ACC Championship Game.”

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The last time he made his first start for a new team, it keyed off a run of 34 consecutive victories. Klubnik has been here before. He’s hoping — no, working — for similar results this time around.

“One thing he understands is you haven’t arrived. You’ve only been given an opportunity,” Tod Klubnik said. “He’s always worked hard, and I think you’ll see him work even harder now because he knows it’s his dream come true, an honor and a blessing, and he doesn’t take that lightly at all.”

Whatever awaits in the Cade Klubnik Era at Clemson begins on Friday night when No. 7 Clemson meets No. 6 Tennessee, the Tigers’ highest-ranked opponent of the season, in the Orange Bowl.

Todd Dodge warned his rising sophomore what was coming his way.

Klubnik had been around Westlake’s program constantly since Dodge took over when Klubnik was a fifth-grader in Dodge’s wife’s class. Klubnik’s older brother, Reed, played for Dodge and Klubnik was a fixture around the facility and field.

He knew enough to also know quarterbacks usually wore red jerseys, serving as loud “Do Not Touch” warnings for oncoming rushers.

That red jersey? Klubnik wouldn’t be getting one that spring. The only way he would learn how to adjust to the speed and intensity of 6A football in Texas would be to feel the fear of oncoming rushers, keep his eyes downfield and make plays anyway.

Dodge had seen Klubnik’s promise coming up through Westlake’s junior high program, but he saw a talent that needed a baptism by fire to prove himself and unlock the next level of his development. So Dodge warned him what was coming. Klubnik didn’t blink and told him he was ready.

“He got the ever-living s— beat out of him that spring,” Dodge said. “He made a bunch of plays, but he got his hat handed to him. It was one of the best things that ever happened to him. It made him tough and he had to handle adversity every day. It got him to where he was making plays and felt like he belonged. That really set the tone for him as a quarterback for us. A lot of young quarterbacks, after Day 2 or 3, might come down with a phantom sickness or something. But he ate it up.”

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Klubnik learned to push through when football got hard. And he proved he loved the sport even when the lessons outweighed the fun and highlights.

“A lot of guys embrace the grind and don’t love it. Cade actually loves it. He loves every minute,” Tod Klubnik said. “He’ll stay on the practice field until everyone’s gone and go watch film for 90 minutes.”

And he has developed a competitive edge in a family of athletes. Whether it’s drawing up a paddleball court in the sand at the beach, playing cornhole in the family’s backyard, playing basketball in the driveway or cards in the house, the Klubniks always have competed. Sometimes that might even be a trick-shot contest and competing to see who could throw a Frisbee over the house and into the hot tub in the backyard first.

That experience in the spring after his freshman season set the stage for Klubnik’s sophomore season where he fought for playing time ahead of two more experienced seniors on Westlake’s roster.

That offseason, Klubnik reached out to Foles, who had gone from Westlake to Super Bowl champion. Almost a decade earlier, Foles was a special guest at an exercise class his mom and Kim Klubnik both attended, and Kim Klubnik pulled her son out of school to attend. Foles picked Klubnik as his workout buddy, and now, Klubnik was ready to step into the shoes Foles had long stepped out of and into college where he starred at Arizona before moving on to the NFL.

Foles responded when Klubnik reached out to him about being the Chaps’ starting quarterback with a three-page letter of insights into how to make the best of his run.

Learn the names of the janitors. Tell them hello. Open their doors for them. Serve people who don’t have anything to offer you. He also introduced him to the concept of mental reps, a practice Klubnik employed that fall when he was splitting time and again this season at Clemson when he served as Uiagalelei’s backup.

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Foles and Klubnik share a Christian faith, so Foles filled the letter with helpful verses from the Bible, practical tips for being a leader, how to love his classmates and teammates and how to find joy in the less joyful parts of the game, as well as how to use his platform for a higher purpose.

It made an impact.

“Cade, he’s the sophomore that year, and he’s first in line on everything,” Dodge said. “He didn’t give a s— that all three were playing. He was going to get in there and be first in line over those two seniors. He wasn’t going to take a backseat to anybody.”

And every day when Westlake’s practices began at 5:30 a.m., Klubnik was there smiling and excited to work.

“I don’t care if you’re a coach, player or student manager, it’s hard to get up and have a good attitude at 5:30 in the morning every day,” Dodge said. “Cade is just one of those guys, and you can’t put a premium on the face of your program being that guy. He has a great way of making those around him better with an infectious, encouraging attitude. The people at Clemson will start to see that in him as the years go on.”

Once it was officially Klubnik’s team, he took advantage. He finished his high school career with the perfect 34-0 record and did so while completing 72 percent of his passes.

“Seldom did the ball hit the ground in team drills during practice,” Dodge said. “And if it did, there was something wrong, and the beautiful thing is I wouldn’t be the most upset about it, he would be. He’d want to make that right.”

Accuracy long has been Klubnik’s calling card, and it might be Clemson’s ticket back to the College Football Playoff.

In Trevor Lawrence’s final two seasons as a starter, 90 percent of his passes were on-target, according to Pro Football Focus. That ranked 13th nationally. Uiagalelei ranked 95th nationally in that stat in 2021 at 82.9 percent and ascended to 54th in September and October of 2022 before dropping to 81st in November.

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Klubnik? This season, 91.3 percent of his passes have been on-target. Only Oregon’s Bo Nix was more accurate among FBS quarterbacks.

“One of the things we tried to do with him and all our quarterbacks is we try to tell them deep balls are completed between 42 and 43 yards deep, not 70 yards deep,” Dodge said, adding that his accuracy stacked up favorably with any quarterbacks he has coached, including Chase Daniel and Greg McElroy. “Very rarely did he ever overthrow a wide-open receiver.”

Off the field, Dodge, who has won state titles with six different quarterbacks, likes to tell his team the coaches have no room for “cool” players who smirk at try-hards.

“I don’t know if we ever had a player that embodied that at quarterback more than Cade,” Dodge said. “Usually, that’s the big man on campus, kind of stuck up and all that stuff. It’s the exact opposite with Cade.”

Klubnik always has been a voracious reader. As a fifth-grader, he “wrote a football book” that was mostly a plagiarized version of the Heisman Trophy winners’ Wikipedia pages. But in the years since, if an NFL quarterback has written a book, Klubnik has read it.

Before this Christmas, Kim Klubnik asked Swinney for his three favorite books on leadership. She bought all three — “Lead … for God’s Sake” by Todd Gongwer, “Training Camp” by Jon Gordon and “Way of the Shepherd” by Dr. Kevin Leman and Bill Pentak — and gave them to her son.

(His sister also gave him a set of golf balls with his new logo printed on them)

Early in summer conditioning, Clemson star running back Will Shipley found himself on the line as the team prepared for a round of sprints. He looked over and right next to him was the Tigers’ new star signee, Klubnik.

“To me as a competitor, that’s ‘All right, let’s frickin’ go.’ When I see that out of a freshman I won’t say anything, but that gains my trust and respect,” Shipley said. “He’s special. There’s no doubt about it.”

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Multiple times weekly, Klubnik and Dodge talked on the phone and discussed how best to handle a situation unfamiliar to Klubnik but common for quarterbacks in his position: sitting on the bench.

Dodge would acknowledge reality: You’re one of the most popular people in Clemson, S.C. right now, right? Begrudgingly, Klubnik would agree.

Dodge consistently emphasized two things: Be the best player and teammate he could be and stay off his phone. Eventually, Klubnik would be the starter. And eventually, there would be a backup who fans would clamor for the first time Klubnik made a mistake.

On the field, Klubnik should push Uiagalelei as hard as he could. It would make them both better, and most importantly, would make the team better. But in his body language, with teammates and with the media, Dodge told Klubnik to make sure he was Uiagalelei’s biggest fan.

The experiences Klubnik had during his sophomore season in high school sharing time with upperclassmen were a constant source of conversation for the pair, and he leaned on those same lessons in his freshman season as Uiagalelei’s understudy, called upon for spot duty on select occasions.

“It’s almost boring how good a kid Cade is,” defensive end K.J. Henry said. “It’s tough. I’m serious. He’s not like myself, come in as a freshman, don’t know what he’s doing, tell him to put on the wrong jersey or something. He’s been locked in since Day 1. I try to pick at him as much as I can in practice like Christian (Wilkins) did with Trevor. It used to work a bit in fall camp, but he doesn’t even hear me anymore.”

And as Klubnik’s role has changed, so has the volume of his voice.

This week, Klubnik was wearing a no-contact jersey typical of quarterbacks as Clemson practiced. Henry was rushing the quarterback, and off-balance, he stumbled into Klubnik and hit him harder than is traditionally allowed.

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“Hey come on 5, what you doing, don’t make me show you what’s up!” Henry recalled Klubnik barking.

“I was like, ‘All right big dog, it’s your team. You got it,’” Henry said. “Seeing a kid that young prepare so well and leave it all out there? All I can do is look back at myself at that age. Could that have been me? Hell no.”

While Clemson’s coaches were on the road recruiting and gave the team the week off, Klubnik set up a group text with the Tigers’ receivers and organized a throwing session on the practice field. Klubnik and Uiagalelei talked after Uiagalelei’s transfer became official. They thanked one another for what they’d done for each other in their year together and wished each other luck and expressed excitement for each other’s future. Klubnik told Uiagalelei he was praying for him.

“It’s not awkward at all,” Klubnik said.

Klubnik’s parents see a college quarterback that reflects the same kid who was running around Westlake’s field as a fifth-grader.

“Happy, joyful, loyal,” Tod Klubnik said.

“He’s like a golden retriever,” Clemson star defensive end Bryan Bresee said.

Whatever Klubnik’s called, his newest title — QB1 — becomes official Friday night.

Slowly, the reality began to sink in as the family enjoyed that dinner at Rick Irwin’s almost a month ago: It’s his time.

“He’s dreamt about this since he was a little bitty kid and hasn’t wavered,” Tod Klubnik said.

Now, it’s time for Klubnik to begin living out that dream.

(Top photo: David Jensen / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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