SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Another game, another quarterback switch for Clemson.

This one wasn’t as extended, but Clemson coach Dabo Swinney once again made the move to Cade Klubnik on Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium. It begs the question: What’s the situation behind center now for the Tigers?

“We’ll just evaluate everything,” Swinney said.

Notre Dame may have very well dashed the fourth-ranked Tigers’ College Football Playoff hopes with a decisive 35-14 win – one in which the Fighting Irish scored 28 of their points before Clemson had any – but Swinney and offensive coordinator Brandon Streeter benched D.J. Uiagalelei for the true freshman late in the third quarter. At the time, Clemson still had a fighting chance down just two scores.

Unlike two weeks earlier when the turnover bug stopped the offense, Clemson simply couldn’t muster much of anything while it held the ball. On a night when Clemson produced its fewest yards of the season, the Tigers punted on six of their first seven possessions with Uiagalelei behind center, the outlier being a turnover on downs.

After a fifth straight possession that failed to reach Notre Dame territory, and with time running out, Clemson summoned Klubnik with 1 minute, 20 seconds left in the third quarter.

“We had kind of said going into that if we didn’t really get anything going on that drive, let’s see if we can just create a little spark,” Swinney said of the timing of the switch.

Klubnik finished the Tigers’ comeback win against Syracuse after coming on in relief in the second half of that one, but Saturday’s appearance wasn’t nearly as celebratory. Klubnik’s lone series ended in disaster when he rolled out and tried to make a throw back across his body from his own end zone while being pressured. The pass was intercepted, and Notre Dame quickly pushed its lead to 21-0 with another touchdown two plays later.

“Cade is trying to make a play, and I hate that for him,” Swinney said. “It was a bad decision. You’re throwing back across your body, and their kid made a good play.”

Uiagalelei came back in for Clemson’s next series and helped put together Clemson’s longest drive at the time (56 yards), though some pass-interference penalties on Notre Dame proved to be the primary assistance. But Clemson’s biggest scoring threat to that point was thwarted when Uiagalelei’s underthrown pass in the red zone was intercepted by Morrison, who put a 96-yard exclamation point on the Irish’s rout.

Swinney said Uiagalelei and Ngata were both to blame for the pick-six as a result of miscommunication. But on a night when Clemson was going to need the passing game to bail out a running game that was held to a season-low 90 yards, it wasn’t nearly good enough.

The final combined line for Uiagalelei and Klubnik? 27 of 40 passing for just 191 yards with one touchdown and two picks. Uiagalelei was also sacked four times, some of which could’ve been avoided, Swinney said.

“There were a couple of plays that we felt like he probably should’ve made,” Swinney said. “Thought he held the ball and took a couple of bad sacks when the protection was there. You’ve got to get rid of the ball. There were just a couple of those plays.”

Swinney said he liked the way Uiagalelei bounced back from his lone turnover to lead a pair of late touchdown drives, but it wasn’t exactly the vote of confidence Uiagalelei got publicly from his coaches in the aftermath of the Syracuse game. Yet while the sample size is significantly smaller, there hasn’t been much from Klubnik to show that he’s ready to handle the biggest moments.

It leaves Clemson with more questions at the position heading back into ACC play this week.

“We’ll see how it goes and get back to work,” Swinney said.

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