Mack Brown identifies what went wrong for UNC against Clemson, Cade Klubnik

Mack Brown and his North Carolina Tar Heels suffered their third straight loss Saturday, falling to Clemson 39-10 in the ACC Championship game. The Tigers were firing on all cylinders on both offense and defense, and Brown detailed what exactly went on for the Heels in their title game.

“Well let me repeat the opening statement, we were one out of five in touchdowns in the red zone, if you’re gonna do that not going to win games,” Brown said. “We felt like with DJ (Uiagalelei) we were gonna make him beat us, we were gonna stop the run so we stacked the box.”

The Tigers unleashed a freshman quarterback of their own against North Carolina, putting in true freshman Cade Klubnik for Uiagalelei from the third series of the game till the very end, and he was effective. Klubnik threw for 279 yards and a touchdown pass, along with 30 yards on the ground and a rushing touchdown, and even added a 19-yard reception to his impressive stat line.

“They put in Cade and Cade played great, so we had to adjust and try to come after him with really young secondary people in the second half, so that put us in a bind,” Brown said.

Brown was asked if he expected to see Klubnik in his matchup, as he had appeared in eight games for the Tigers in the regular season and threw no more than six pass attempts in any contest.

“No, Cade had played very little all year and when he went in at Notre Dame I think he threw an interception, so we totally thought we would see DJ because they hadn’t changed all year,” Brown explained. “We stopped him the first two or three times, DJ was struggling, that’s exactly what we thought would happen and we were hoping would happen because he’s played good at times.”

The Tar Heels were effective at slowing down Uiagalelei, holding him to just two pass completions for ten yards in his two series. But they could not anticipate what would happen next, as Klubnik would go on to play the most he ever had all season, achieving multiple career highs on the biggest stage of the season.

“But he didn’t play well last week and he was really struggling, they weren’t trying to run the ball, we thought they’d try to line up and run it down our throat like Norte Dame did. And Cade came in and he had 20 out of 24 and 10 out of 11 in the first half and really played great,” Brown said.

Brown and UNC will look to turn things around in their season finale on December 28 as they take on Oregon in the San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl.