In the words of head coach Dabo Swinney, Saturday night was just not Clemson’s night. The Tigers struggled in all aspects of the game and quarterback DJ Uiagalelei was not immune to that struggle.

The second-year starter put on another lackluster performance against unranked Notre Dame on the road in South Bend, recording just under 200 passing yards (191) and one touchdown while throwing a costly pick-six early in the fourth quarter that extended the Fighting Irish’s lead to four scores.

“Definitely not the outcome we wanted, but we gotta learn from what we did wrong, learn from what we did right and at the end of the day, we got a long season still,” Uiagalelei told Don Munson following the loss. “We’ve got three games left — Louisville, Miami and South Carolina. We’ve got a chance next week to be able to clinch the division against Louisville and that’s huge for us. Last year we weren’t able to do that, so that’s a big goal for us and to be able to hit that goal and clinch the division, that’s big for us.”

With the chance to avenge last season’s ACC Championship miss, Uiagalelei knows there are brighter things ahead for the Tigers despite the devastating loss to Notre Dame. The California native and his team are focused on seeing where they can make improvements, growing from their mistakes and turning the page to Louisville next weekend.

“The biggest thing for us is to keep our heads up, learn from this and be able to respond,” the quarterback said. “We’ve got to be able to play great down the stretch. A lot of things can happen, it’s college football. At the end of the day, we’ll see what happens, but the biggest thing is you got to focus on the present, just be able to focus on the now. You can’t worry too much about the future. You just got to continue to keep going to work and not get lost in the process.”

Preparation this week will be huge for this Clemson team. It will come down to whether the Tigers can face their mistakes, take responsibility and move on with the loss in the rearview, something Uiagalelei has high hopes for going into practice on Monday.

“Monday’s going to be tough,” Uiagalelei said. “Definitely not the day we wanted to have coming into Monday, some things that we’ll need to develop. You’ve got to be able to take it head on and be able to learn from our mistakes as players and be able to be responsible for each and everybody, especially me and everybody else on the team for your mistakes, but definitely Monday and Tuesday will be big days as well as Wednesday and Thursday. I just got to be able to come out and focus to be able to get that momentum and just keep playing.”

Dear Old Clemson is excited to announce a limited edition football and poster signed by Clemson’s Avengers.

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