Making his first career start in Friday’s Orange Bowl against No. 6 Tennessee, Clemson’s Cade Klubnik completed 30-of-54 passes for 320 yards while rushing 20 times for 51 yards and a touchdown. The true freshman quarterback was also intercepted twice in the fourth quarter on a couple of desperation heaves with the Tigers trailing by multiple scores.

While there’s plenty of plays that didn’t go the way Klubnik wanted in the seventh-ranked Tigers’ 31-14 loss at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., the former five-star prospect said he’s “super proud” of how he and his teammates fought until the end.

“I think we gave it all we had till the very last play,” Klubnik said after the game. “There’s a lot of plays that I want back. But just super proud of how everybody competed. Just thankful for these seniors. There’s so many guys that y’all just don’t get to see every single day that just have such an impact on me, from everybody – Coach (Dabo) Swinney, Hunter Johnson, Ship (Will Shipley), KJ (Henry). There’s so many times that I need help and they’re there for me.

“Just so thankful for these guys. Wish we could have sent out these seniors out with a win. But I think we gave it all we had till the very last play.”

Despite running 101 plays, amassing 484 yards of offense and racking up 34 first downs, Clemson (11-3) was only able to turn that offensive production into one touchdown and two field goals.

The Tigers moved the ball into Tennessee territory on 11 drives, including each of their first eight, but didn’t reach paydirt until Klubnik found the end zone on a 4-yard run with 10:01 left in the game.

Clemson missed three field goals and turned the ball over on downs twice, including once on an unsuccessful fake field goal attempt, and missed another scoring opportunity in the waning moments of the second quarter when Klubnik decided to run the ball with the Tigers out of timeouts.

Clemson trailed 14-3 at the end of the first half despite outgaining the Volunteers, 273-191, and holding a 19-12 edge in first downs. While the Tigers managed to cut a 21-6 deficit to one score at 21-14 early in the fourth quarter on Klubnik’s run and a Shipley two-point conversion run, the missed opportunities proved too much for them to overcome in the end.

“The name of the game is points, and you get points by scoring touchdowns,” Klubnik said. “So, we needed to score touchdowns, and we weren’t doing that. So, part of that was on me. I took a sack on third down. There’s just a lot of missed opportunities. Tennessee did a great job on disguising and disguising their blitzes and their coverages, and there was a lot of opportunities we had, especially in the red zone.

“But we needed to finish. That’s what we needed to do. We were driving on them every single drive. We just were, and for some reason when we got inside the red zone, we just couldn’t finish it.”

Dear Old Clemson has added the Tiger Sack Pack to our online store.  Save by getting the Two Pack of signed cards from two of the nation’s top defensive ends, Myles Murphy and Xavier Thomas.

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