CLEMSON — The first half, especially the first quarter, was not a good start for Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik.

The sophomore, who was making his first start at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, turned the football over on back-to-back possessions that led to easy touchdowns for Charleston Southern.

“Just settle down,” that’s what Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney told his quarterback.

Luckily for 25th-ranked Clemson he did.

Klubnik settled down enough to throw for 315 yards and four touchdowns in the Tigers’ 66-17 victory over CSU.

“You just kind of got to hang in there with him,” Swinney said. “He is going to be a great one. He kind of reminds me of Tajh Boyd in 2011. Those first couple of games, I though Chad Morris was going to eat his headset.

“Sometimes you just have to play your way through it a little bit.”

Following last Monday’s performance, where Klubnik was charged with a fumble and an interception in the Tigers’ loss to Duke, Clemson was hoping he might get off to a better start on Saturday, which he sort of did.

On the Tigers’ opening possession, Klubnik threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Antonio Williams to cap a 10-play, 66-yard drive.

“I actually thought we came out really well,” he said. “The first drive we had a seventy-yard drive or something like that, it was a heck of a first drive. I was commanding the offense. We were rolling.”

But then they started rolling down hill, especially Klubnik. He fumbled the snap on the Tigers’ second possession and the Buccaneers recovered it and took it to the Clemson one. They scored on the very next play.

Clemson (1-1) was then moving the ball on its third possession when Klubnik saw something CSU was doing prior to the snap and he panicked.

“Sometimes, you have to take a sack,” Swinney said. “You don’t ever want a sack but sometimes you have to take a sack.”

Instead of calling a timeout or throwing the ball away after the snap, Klubnik ran around for a second and then tried to toss it out of bounds. However, he did not put enough air under the ball and it went right into the arms of Leon Thomas’ hands, who raced 67 yards for a CSU touchdown.

“I was just doing too much. I got a little hesitant,” Klubnik said. “I kind of saw something pre-snap that kind of spooked me a little bit and it was kind of fluke of a play.”

It was a play that got the fans booing.

“It was just a horrible decision on my part. I tried to throw it away, but I just did throw it far enough,” Klubnik said. “It was just a bad decision and completely my fault. The offensive line and the receivers were playing a heck of a game.

“I had to comeback and refocus. I had a decision to make. I can chin it and keep rolling and play like me or I can let the external factors, the fans and what people are saying and I let them in my soul. I just did not let that happen.”

He did not. He did fight back. Klubnik went on to complete 28-of-37 passes, including three more touchdown passes. A 5-yard scoring pass to Williams, a 69-yard throw to Beaux Collins and a 26-yard toss to tight end Josh Sapp.

“As he plays, the game is going to keep slowing down for him, but from that point on, he was magical. He was awesome,” Swinney said. “He knew where to go with the ball. He made all the throws and made some nice runs.

“The biggest thing was just being able to respond. You saw his heart and you saw his moxie.”

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