Dabo Swinney addresses whether he considered benching Cade Klubnik

Dabo Swinney said he and the staff did not consider benching QB Cade Klubnik during Clemson’s 34-21 loss to Syracuse. The loss dropped the Tigers to 1-3 on the season.

Clemson trailed 24-14 at halftime and 34-14 going into the fourth quarter. The stat line showed Klubnik played relatively well, but the offense never got going early as Clemson had to rally.

But Swinney was asked if Klubnik could’ve been sat down for redshirt sophomore Christopher Vizzina. It wasn’t even a thought.

“We didn’t. I thought Cade competed his butt off,” Swinney said. “And, you know, he certainly missed a couple plays, but he made some good ones too. Made a lot of good ones. I thought he was good in the first half. Just couldn’t really get the ball and … no, I did not. We did not think about that.”

Klubnik finished the game 37-of-60 passing for 363 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. The Tigers mustered just one fourth quarter score and were left asking more questions going into Week 5.

Klubnik and the rest of the team have to put it all together the rest of the way to even have a shot at the ACC and the CFP. Putting themselves in 20 point holes is no recipe for victory.

“They give you eight (more games) for a reason, but we’ve got no room for error,” Swinney said. “We’re uphill and the wind is at our face, for sure. Hey, we gotta go do it the hard way. Not going to be able to do it the easy way, but we’re not out. As long as we stay together and keep competing, anything can happen. The good news is, we’ve got a good team. 

“We played a tough opener, we could’ve played East-West University, right? It probably feels different right now. We’ve got two losses that came down to the last freaking play of the game, and we’ve had opportunities in both of those games. Putting it all together has been our problem, that’s really been the frustrating thing.”

Coming off a career year, Klubnik has expected to be even better this fall. This year, he has 996 yards, six touchdowns, four interceptions and a 60.1% completion percentage. He’s on pace to have half of the touchdown passes he did last season.

“It all falls on me, it’s my responsibility,” Swinney said, taking the pressure off Klubnik and his players. “I’m the head coach and I’ve been here a long time, been in a lot of games. I’ve had some 2-3 starts, in fact, in my first year and we went all the way to the ACC Championship game. I think we lost down here. We’ve had a couple of those type of moments, you just keep playing the games. 

“I know the world we live in, I know the world we’ve created at Clemson with high expectations and excellence. I don’t have my head in the sand. I know there’s gonna be a ton of negativity, that comes with it. We can’t do anything about that, we’ve got to stay together and go play. In the end, you don’t have the start you want, but you can have the kind of ending you want. You still control that.”