Cade Klubnik admits he did not expect to score on game-winning touchdown

Clemson trailed Pittsburgh 20-17 with fewer than two minutes to play on Saturday, College Football Playoff and ACC title hopes hanging firmly in the balance. Quarterback Cade Klubnik needed to lead a solid drive down the field.

Little did he know, the seas would soon part for him and he’d waltz in for a 50-yard touchdown on a simple quarterback draw.

“No, I did not expect that to definitely score,” Klubnik said. “I mean they were just playing a lot of two-man. They were in the first half, and then a lot in the second one too. Just a lot of two-man. So we kind of saw that and coach (Garrett) Riley had a great call. I think it was second-and-4, something like that. So that’s a great call. Just stick draw.”

Cade Klubnik took the snap and quickly surveyed the field. He let the pass rush get up the field for a quick second, then took off up the middle.

Initially he had nothing but open grass. Then he saw a safety coming down. He explained the rest.

“It’s a great four-second call, go get the first down, get a quick ‘nother play off if we get tackled,” Cade Klubnik said. “But definitely go get all you can.

“I’m running down the field, I get to the second level it’s wide open, we block it up perfectly. I get up to the second level, I see the safety coming at me, so I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get out of bounds.’ We don’t have any timeouts so I kind of take it right. Start going right, out of bounds. TJ (Moore)‘s blocking his guy and then the guy peeled around, not letting me get out of bounds. And TJ just kind of kept him going and then I just kind of reacted and just kind of went with it.”

With a quick out-the-up move, Cade Klubnik was free into green grass. He raced all the way in for the 50-yard score, and the Clemson defense would hold on for the win.

It preserved the team’s postseason hopes, even if the Tigers need help to realize their dreams.

To Cade Klubnik, the big play was about one thing. Preparation.

“Yeah, we do work those every Wednesday. It’s kind of different every week,” he said. “Some it’s, ‘Hey, you’ve got one timeout, touchdown to win it. Two timeouts, field goal to win it. Or no timeouts, touchdown to win it, minute and a half, let’s go.’ We really work a lot of different scenarios that really could happen.

“And that preparation I think has helped me a ton whenever we did get to those scenarios. We’re really ready for them and we know what to do.”