Clemson Tigers Star Named Semifinalist for Two Major Player Awards

The Clemson Tigers have a player considered among the best players in the country at one of the game’s premier positions.

Nov 9, 2024; Blacksburg, Virginia, USA; Clemson Tigers quarterback Cade Klubnik (2) warms up before the game at Lane Stadium. / Brian Bishop-Imagn Images

Clemson Tigers quarterback Cade Klubnik is among the semifinalists for two of college football’s most prestigious honors, as both awards announced their semifinal lists earlier this week.

Klubmik is a semifinalist for both the Maxwell Award and the Davey O’Brien Award.

The Maxwell award is given to the top player in college football, while the O’Brien award is given to the top quarterback in the country.

Voting began Tuesday for select the finalists for the Maxwell Award. Those finalists will be announced Nov. 26. Last year’s winner was Washington quarterback Michale Penix Jr.

Entering this week’s game against Pitt, the Clemson junior has 2,275 yards passing with 24 touchdowns and four interceptions. He’s also rushed for 300 yards and four touchdowns.

The O’Brien Award also narrowed its semifinalists down to 16, a list that includes Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, who is tied with Klubnik for third-most touchdown passes nationally.

At one point this season he led the Tigers to six straight wins as they moved briefly into the Top 10 of the AP Top 25. A loss to Louisville two weeks ago dropped the Tigers (7-2, 6-1 in ACC) in the national rankings and in a position where they need help to get into the ACC title game.

Clemson wraps up its conference slate on Saturday with a road trip to Pitt, followed by two non-conference games, the latter of which is the annual showdown with South Carolina.

Earlier this season Klubnik earned the Walter Camp national offensive player of the week, Davey O’Brien national quarterback of the week and ACC co-quarterback of the week after a record-setting performance against Appalachian State.

He completed 24-of-26 passes for a career-high 378 yards and five passing touchdowns in addition to scoring two rushing touchdowns in only one half of play. His pass efficiency rating of 277.9 broke the program record set by Tajh Boyd.

He was also the first FBS quarterback in the last 25 years with five or more passing touchdowns, multiple rushing touchdowns and a completion percentage of 90.0 percent or better in a game according to ESPN.

In October he was named the ACC quarterback of the week after he completed 31-of-41 passes for 309 yards with three touchdown passes and no interceptions, along with 30 yards rushing against Wake Forest.

With a 308-yard passing performance against Virginia the following game, he became the first Clemson quarterback with back-to-back 300-yard passing games since Trevor Lawrence in the final two games of the 2020 season.