By Will Vandervort.

ATLANTA — What is next for Clemson’s quarterback position?

With Deshaun Watson out for the season with a torn ACL, as The Clemson Insider as learned, the Tigers offense seems to be in trouble.

Cole Stoudt, who started the season as the starting quarterback, took several steps back in No. 17 Clemson’s 28-6 loss at No. 22 Georgia Tech. The senior seemed lost and confused against a Yellow Jackets defense that was giving up 239.7 yards a game coming in.

Stoudt threw three interceptions—two that were returned for touchdowns—while completing just 3 of 11 passes for 19 yards. The Tigers as a whole finished with just 65 yards passing, the worse performance by a Clemson team since a guy named Ken Hatfield was running his flexbone offense in the early 1990s.

“This is not all on Cole,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “He did not have his best day, but we all own ownership on this one, period. I wish we could have executed better in certain spots, but we didn’t.

“The bottom line is you can’t turn the football over.”

Clemson (7-3, 6-2 ACC) finished the afternoon with 190 total yards, its second lowest total under offensive coordinator Chad Morris.

“Anytime you lose a guy, especially what (Watson) has been through this last month, it’s tough to see that,” the Clemson coach said. “Obviously, it didn’t help. As much effort he put to get back and how well we were playing at the time, it did not help.”

The Tigers were moving the football pretty good with Watson. After recovering a Georgia Tech fumble, he moved them 41 yards down the field to set up a 27-yard Ammon Lakip field goal for a 3-0 lead. On the next possession, he then moved Clemson 37 yards on five plays to the Georgia Tech 14 before his ACL blew when he ran seven yards up the middle from the Tech 21.

Three plays later, Stoudt threw an interception to Tech’s Jamal Golden, which he returned 85 yards for a score. Clemson only got 107 yards of offense after that.

Stoudt was eventually pulled from the game after he threw his third interception – a 62-yard touchdown return by Chris Milton. Third-string quarterback Nick Schuessler came into after that and went 4-for-4 for 19 yards.

Morris and Swinney both said they have not thought about next week’s quarterback situation for the Georgia State game, though Morris did say they have to get Schuessler—a former gray shirt—ready to play.

“It’s hard to make a decision like that today,” Morris said. “We were just trying to create a spark, that’s all we were trying to do.”

Schuessler, a former high school teammate of Wayne Gallman’s, says he is going to do the best he can to help the team in any way that he can.

“We all know we are one play away from going in there and Coach Swinney does a great job of making sure we all understand that and we are ready to step up if our name is called,” the sophomore said. “I compete every day and I try to make the most of each rep that I get. If the coaches think that then I will be ready.”

Schuessler said it was tough to try and come in for Stoudt after Milton’s 62-yard interception return and lift the team up.

“It was definitely tough and I hate it for the seniors because they were down. I just tried to go in there and do the best I could,” he said.