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Clemson's Brandon Streeter on benching DJ Uiagalelei in the future

20200517_134556by:Justin Rudolph10/22/22
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The Clemson Tigers survived a scare at home in their early day Saturday matchup against the Syracuse Orange. Clemson was able to pull off the victory 27-21 in large part to their defense and sophomore running back Will Shipley. Unfortunately, star quarterback DJ Uiagalelei had a rough performance against Syracuse. His struggles against the Orange prompted him to be benched for freshman quarterback Cade Klubnik.

After the game, in the postgame press conference, Clemson offensive coordinator Brandon Streeter was asked about his decision to bench Uiagalelei and whether he would consider doing it again in the future.

“Everybody knows they have to play well if they want to continue to play, but he doesn’t have to be perfect,” said Streeter.

Uiagalelei finished the game by completing 13 of his 21 pass attempts for 138 yards. He also recorded eight carries for 13 yards on the ground.

Up next to the Tigers is a much-needed bye week to fine-tune a few things before finishing off the back half of their season. After the bye, Clemson will take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on the road. The kickoff time for that matchup has yet to be determined.

Clemson benches DJ Uiagalelei, puts in true freshman Cade Klubnik against Syracuse

Swinney brought Klubnik into the game in the third quarter against the Orange, with Clemson struggling offensively. The highly touted true freshman has impressed since coming into the program this spring semester and will now get his shot as the team’s quarterback.

In Clemson’s prior possession to Klubnik coming in, Uiagalelei threw his second interception of the day, bringing his stat line to 138 passing yards, no touchdowns and two picks. Now, Klubnik will get his chance to lead the Tigers as they look to catch lightning in a bottle.

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Coming out of high school, Klubnik was ranked a five-star prospect by the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting services. The Austin (Westlake) product was the No. 1 quarterback in the 2022 class and No. 18 on the national scale.