If Cade Klubnik struggles in Clemson football’s new offense in the spring game, recall Tajh Boyd's debut
CLEMSON – After watching Tajh Boyd complete only eight of his 24 passes in Clemson’s 2011 spring football game, my immediate conclusion was “Uh-oh. The Tigers might be in trouble at quarterback.”
Shows how much I knew.
Boyd was making his debut in the up-tempo offense brought to the program by new offensive coordinator Chad Morris, much like young quarterbacks Cade Klubnik and Chris Vizzina will be doing Saturday in Clemson’s 2023 spring game.
Klubnik and Vizzina will showcase how much they’ve mastered the up-tempo “air raid” offense recently introduced by first-year offensive coordinator Garrett Riley.
Despite some early struggles in the transition, things turned out just fine for Boyd, who seven months later put the finishing touches on a season in which he passed for 3,800 yards and 33 touchdowns. He went on to be ACC Player of the Year in 2012 and left Clemson as the ACC career record holder in passing yards and passing touchdowns.
But it was that spring game performance that showed Boyd and Morris what the Tigers’ quarterback for the next three seasons needed to work on to live up to expectations.
“That’s a rule for the rest of your life – don’t let the spring game create too much excitement or too much disappointment, right?” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said last week as he prepared his team for his 15th spring game.
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I should have known better, because we’d seen such before – little-known players who ran wild in the spring game or future stars who turned in relatively poor performances.
Swinney and Clemson’s fans have seen plenty of both over the previous 14 spring games, including some memorable performances that helped launch successful careers and others that led to careers that never quite flourished.
Yet every year at the spring game, fans get excited about a third-team running back who breaks off a couple of nice runs or a back-up safety who has a Pick 6, which is fine. It’s fun to attempt to identify potential impact players, but just remember that spring games are more glorified scrimmages than they are games.
Experimentation with different lineups often is the order of the day, with veteran starters regularly taking early bench seats to allow younger players to gain experience.
Much of the attention Saturday obviously will focus on Clemson’s quarterbacks, most notably Klubnik and Vizzina. Klubnik flashed in last year’s ACC Championship Game but has only one career start to his credit, while Vizzina is a freshman who just enrolled in January, so there’s still a learning curve to navigate.
By all accounts, Klubnik has been a quick study and both Swinney and Riley have been effusive in their praise for the rising sophomore.
“Cade’s been amazing,” Swinney said. “Just awesome all spring.”
Rest assured that fans will want to be impressed, but if either of the young quarterbacks experience some growing pains Saturday, it's best not to fret. One probably shouldn’t put too much stock into what unfolds during an intrasquad scrimmage in April.
Things can be distinctly different come September.
Tajh Boyd taught me that.
Scott Keepfer covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at skeepfer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @ScottKeepfer
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Clemson football: Cade Klubnik's spring game may stir Tajh Boyd memory
