Klubnik says chaos of college football is a lesson

Cade Klubnik and the Tigers saw more evidence that each week is the most important yet.

David Hood - Senior Writer - Thursday, October 10 2024

CLEMSON – College football saw top-ranked teams lose at home and on the road last weekend, and that chaos helped elevate Clemson into the Top 10 nationally. For Cade Klubnik, that means every game is the opener.

No. 10 Clemson (4-1 overall, 3-0 ACC) travels to Winston-Salem to take on Wake Forest (2-3, 1-1) this Saturday at noon. Clemson is attempting to win its 16th consecutive game against Wake Forest to take sole possession of the longest winning streak in series history, already its longest versus an ACC foe.

Klubnik knows the Tigers can’t afford to look past the Demon Deacons.

“I think more than anything, it's just you have to take every team and make that the most important game of the year,” Klubnik said Wednesday. “Coach Swinney’s been saying, ‘Hey, it's opening week.’ That's what he keeps saying is it's the first game of the season mentality every single week and just treating every game like it's the biggest game of the year. Because it really is, especially in the world of college football. So this game that I'm about to play this Saturday, it's the most important game of the year for me and I’m ready to go treat it like any other. They're a great team. Just over the last two years, they've been right there with us, so I'm hoping to go play my best game on Saturday.”

The Demon Deacons are coming off a comeback 34-30 victory at NC State.

“They are really just a tough team. They're a very well coached, very disciplined team in what they do and in what they do,” Klubnik said. “They do it really well, and they're a team that's never going to quit. Obviously had a great win last week for a great team like NC State and on the road at their place is never an easy place to play and was down the fourth quarter and kept playing the whole game and ended up winning it. So definitely a team that you're going to have to play all four quarters against 'em, but they got good players and definitely a great opponent.

Clemson’s offense is playing at a high level, and Klubnik said it’s fun to look out and see several players he can trust.

“It's really fun. It's exciting, and you get out there, and there's just a sense of comfortability of you've got matchups really everywhere,” Klubnik said. “It's fun just because an advantage for us, I think, at times because if they're going to go play man coverage, I got four guys out there that I trust can go win in man coverage, and it's more just kind of finding the guy on their team that maybe we can go after. So it takes a little bit of stress off of maybe one guy that we're having to depend on to really win every single time. Instead, we've kind of got guys everywhere, and it's really fun."