Cade Klubnik reveals message to teammates after loss vs. Louisville

The last time Clemson lost a game, it answered with a six-game win streak. The Tigers scored 40 or more points in five of those six victories, shoving their 34-3, season-opening defeat to then-top-ranked Georgia into the abyss of Death Valley.

Dabo Swinney’s group needs another response like that now that Clemson has hit a speed bump in ACC play, suffering a 33-21 home loss to Louisville last week.

Luckily for the longtime Clemson head coach, he has a conductor he trusts aboard that can get the program back on track for a conference title game push.

Quarterback Cade Klubnik commanded the Clemson podium Wednesday with high energy and the kind of perspective that comes with close to two seasons worth of starting experience.

“I had some good talks with guys after the game with our offense and just telling them who I’m going to be for y’all and just challenged them to be the same for me,” Klubnik said. “I think the one thing that I’ve kind of learned is you can’t just push away the feelings, right? You can’t just go home all day Sunday and just go hop on the game and go play Xbox for eight hours and then just come to practice on Monday and act like it didn’t happen.

“You really have to accept it. You got to accept the feelings, accept the anger, accept the emotions that come with that and truly be like, ‘OK, this happened.’ When I got to leave Sunday night, I had accepted it, and I flushed it, and I learned what I needed to get better at and how we need to push this team to go be better.”

Klubnik said he learned how to effectively process the emotion of a loss last year, a season in which Clemson finished the month of October at 4-4 overall and just 2-4 in ACC play before making a full sprint to eight wins, and then collecting another win in the Gator Bowl.

Despite his rough performance against Georgia to start the year, Klubnik has made strides across the board this season.

He’s already set a single-season career high with 21 passing touchdowns. He’s thrown only three interceptions in eight outings. And he’s registered a trio of 300-yard games through the air.

Louisville took away Clemson’s offensive explosives and forced the Tigers into a combined 29 third and fourth downs this past weekend. Even though they converted 16 of those, they still rounded out the night with just three touchdown drives to their name, two of which came in the fourth quarter.

“I challenged the guys,” Klubnik said, “we don’t have to show up with a tense mindset. We’ve been very successful this year at many times. So let’s go practice and do the routine things at a very high rate. We don’t have to show up and be tense and be all tight in practice.

“Let’s just go work our butt off and go get better for two hours every day in practice and then go get better on film and do all this, and then just put a little bit more [in], stay a little bit later, get here a little bit earlier.”