The DJ Uiagalelei that threw for 439 yards and two touchdowns in Clemson’s double overtime loss at Notre Dame in 2020, is the quarterback Mike Norvell thinks he will see more times than not at Florida State this coming season.

Uiagalelei, who led Clemson to a 22-6 record and an ACC Championship from 2020-’22, is penciled in as the Seminoles’ new starting quarterback in 2024. Of course, Uiagalelei and FSU host the Tigers on Oct. 5 in Tallahassee, Fla., which should make for an interesting reunion.

The last time Clemson fans saw Uiagalelei was when he was benched for Cade Klubnik in the 2022 ACC Championship Game. A junior at the time, Uiagalelei was coming off a performance in which he completed just 8 of 29 passes for 99 yards with one touchdown and one interception in a 31-30 loss to archrival South Carolina.

The loss to the Gamecocks was the Tigers’ first since 2013 in the rivalry. The next week, he struggled on Clemson’s first two possessions in the ACC Championship Game, completing just 2 of 5 passes for 10 yards.

On the Tigers’ next series, Klubnik came out and led them on a 9-play, 71-yard touchdown drive on the way to a 39-10 victory over North Carolina. Uiagalelei’s career at Clemson was done.

The next week he graduated from Clemson and a few weeks later he transferred to Oregon State, where he led the Beavers to an 8-4 record while he was there in 2023. He has since transferred to Florida State where he hopes to lead the Seminoles to the College Football Playoff.

“He followed a great group of quarterbacks (at Clemson),” Norvell said at the ACC Spring Meetings last week. “His freshman year, he is thrown into a situation, and he flourished in those situations. All of a sudden, you go into a year and maybe a bad play here of a challenging game or different elements of an offense or personnel … He has had to go through a lot.”

Uiagalelei finished his Clemson career completing 59.8 percent of his passes for 5,681 yards with 36 touchdown passes and 17 interceptions. In his last season there, the 6-foot-5, 240-pound quarterback completed 61.9 percent of his throws for 2,521 yards, 22 touchdowns and seven picks.

He had his moments in 2022. He led the Tigers to a thrilling double overtime victory over Wake Forest, while completing 26 of 41 passes for 371 yards and five touchdowns. He also ran for 52 more yards in that game.

The next week against NC State, he threw for 209 yards and a touchdown, while running for 73 more yards and two more scores in a 30-20 Clemson victory.

Uiagalelei threw for three touchdowns and ran for another in the Tigers’ 34-28 victory over FSU a few weeks later. However, after losing a fumble that led to a 90-yard touchdown return by Syracuse the following week, Uiagalelei never truly recovered.

The Tigers got destroyed by Notre Dame the following week and two weeks later lost to the Gamecocks for the first time in 10 seasons.

“I think, in today’s college athletics, there is so much access to individuals that sometimes that outside weight can become a pretty good amount on a young man,” Norvell said. “The trip to (Oregon State) and being there, I think was good for him. I think it really allowed him to go and be in a totally different system. To have to learn and have to showcase some of the elements of his skill set, but also, there was different personnel he had there, too.”

Florida State’s head coach feels Uiagalelei has grown up since his Clemson days and is probably more advanced in his progression in Tallahassee than they expected him to be because of the path he took to get there.

“It was a real positive spring for us,” Norvell said. “We tried to put him in some situations that were going to make him uncomfortable. We tried to put him in some situations that were probably a little bit different, and I thought he handled them all really well.

“I think he has grown in his confidence. I think he is very comfortable. I think he has some guys around him that are going to help fit his skill and he will allow us to have a chance to be a pretty explosive offense.”

And they are excited to see how he and their offense fit when the lights are turned on.

“He is excited about how it fits because I think it is a good mix of a lot of different things he has done,” Norvell said. “He also, in these first four months, has grown confidence in what we are asking him to do and how we are asking him to do it.”

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