College Football Legend Shares Promising Thoughts on Clemson's Star QB

There is a lot of unknown surrounding how Clemon's offense will look this season, but a past college football legend has shared some positive analysis about their star quarterback.

Nov 25, 2023; Columbia, South Carolina, USA; Clemson Tigers quarterback Cade Klubnik (2) raises his arms as time runs out against the South Carolina Gamecocks at Williams-Brice Stadium. Clemson won 16-7 / Ken Ruinard-USA TODAY Sports

Clemson needs to make the College Football Playoff this season.

There is tons of pressure on Dabo Swinney and this team to perform like past versions of this program after they have gone three years without making the CFP and have only won one ACC championship during that span.

While that might not sound like a major drought, it feels like an eternity for Tigers fans.

After once dominating everything within their conference, they have seen some of the past afterthoughts catch up to them, something that shouldn't happen for a program like Clemson who has a legendary head coach still at the helm.

Analysts who cover the sport are more than willing to blame Swinney for that, citing his stubbornness to utilize the transfer portal and embrace NIL as the reason why the Tigers have taken a step back.

All that can be quieted with a successful campaign this season.

But for that to happen, they need their star quarterback Cade Klubnik to take the next step and lead this offense into prominence after a disappointing year as the full-time starter.

When discussing Clemson and how they might look this year, current ESPN analyst and past college football legend Greg McElroy offered his thoughts on how the young signal caller might perform in 2024, and he seems to think the former five-star will bounce back.

"I think sometimes when we evaluate quarterbacks like Cade Klubnik, we anticipate way too much. The guy has only started 13-14 games in his career, and the expectation level is for him to just be the second coming of Deshaun Watson. For him to be the second coming of Trevor Lawrence. That is not fair nor is that reasonable ... And I think Cade Klubnik might have needed some time. Now he has that. Entering into year number two with Garrett Riley his offensive coordinator, I feel pretty optimistic about what he's going to be able to achieve this year," he said on the ESPN College Football YouTube channel.

McElroy also compared the Clemson star to Bo Nix when he was at Auburn, saying they have similar skill sets where they can move to create plays. Nix wasn't able to put it all together until he went to Oregon where he played his way into being the 12th overall pick in the NFL draft.

That doesn't need to happen for Klubnik.

This offseason should have allowed him to get more comfortable with the offense and develop a better feel with his wide receivers who hopefully remain healthy this year.

If that doesn't occur, then there will be major red flags about what he can accomplish at the Power 4 level, but it hasn't gotten to that point yet.

McElroy is confident Klubnik will put together a much better season, and that should help Clemson reach their goal of getting into the CFP.