Swinney in no hurry to take a QB out of the transfer portal with Uncle Paul as insurance

Uncle Paul Tyson is insurance for the Tigers next season.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Dec 14 07:00:06 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON – Uncle Paul is here and standing by, meaning the Tigers aren’t anxious to dip into the transfer portal for a quarterback.

Hunter Helms announced a few weeks that he was transferring out to play his final two seasons, leaving starter Cade Klubnik, redshirt Christopher Vizzina, graduate Paul Tyson and walk-on Trent Pearman in the quarterback room.

The Tigers don’t have a quarterback committed for the 2024 class – the coaching staff offered just four quarterbacks – and won’t take one this late in the cycle. The Tigers have one quarterback committed for 2025 in Blake Hebert. However, the expectation is that Tyson will move into a coaching role next season, leaving the Tigers with just two scholarship quarterbacks returning for next season in Klubnik and Vizzina.

Head coach Dabo Swinney was asked Tuesday if he considered dipping into the transfer portal for a quarterback – considering the low numbers – and he said no, that he was happy with the roster he has because old Uncle Paul gives them the depth he wants.

“We talk about that at every position, but we like the guys we have, and we like who's coming. So we feel pretty good about the direction that we have there,” Swinney said. “Paul Tyson is going to stay. He's got another year. We call him Uncle Paul. Uncle Paul, he's going to be our Zeb Noland (the former grad student who suited up for South Carolina in a recent season). Lord, God help us. Hopefully, we don't have to get to that point. If you get to a fourth quarterback, it's usually not pretty good anyway.

“You're probably resetting your goals if you're down to your fourth quarterback. But Uncle Paul is going to stay. Uncle Paul is going to become a coach. He's going to become Coach Paul. He's going to be a student coach, and that's what he wants to do. That was part of getting him here, but he's got another year of eligibility. He's going to be a coach, but he's going to stay in shape and keep his arm ready. And again, if we had to get to a fourth guy, he'd be the guy to go play for us and could function, obviously, and know everything. Obviously, he's going to know the game plan week in and week out intimately as being a coach for us.”

Swinney said the coaches have faith in the players on the roster.

“We're excited about Klubnik. We're committed to him, believe in him. He's our guy. And we saw a lot of growth in him this year, and his first year is a full-time starter,” Swinney said. “And I think you're going to continue to see that. He's got a lot of things he's got to do in the offseason, for sure. The game has slowed down for him. He's still got more to do there. He makes elite plays, and he's gotten better at cutting out some of those disaster plays that we had early on and just, again, just being a little smarter and settling in a little more poise in the pocket, things like that.

“I think he's made great progress, and we really believe in that kid. He'll be a junior. I think he stays the course. When he walks out of here a couple of years, this kid's going to be a great winner here. I really believe that. And so does everybody else in the building. Then we're excited about CV (Vizzina). We're executing the plan that we put in place. This is a highly recruited guy that could have gone to a lot of places, and he chose to come. He was only 17. That was what we recruited him to redshirt. We felt good about Hunter, and that's why we went and got Paul Tyson and Trent. We felt good about getting through the year and letting him really just develop and catch up. Now, he'll be a redshirt freshman, Cade will be a junior.”

Pearman is out of nearby Daniel High School and the son of Danny Pearman, who mans the transfer portal for the coaching staff. Swinney said if it weren’t for the younger Pearman, the coaches would definitely head to the portal.

“We really, really like Trent Pearman. He's got some moxie and savvy. And those of you that have watched him play, I mean, this kid was a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year in the state of South Carolina. This ain't no slouch now,” Swinney said. “This kid can play. He needed to get a little bigger. He needed to get a little stronger. But he's got savvy, he's got instincts, he's got moxie. I mean, he is a really, really, really, really good third-team quarterback.

“So that's what we got. And then we got Paul, who's a sixth-year guy who's got a wealth of experience who could go win the game for us in the Gator Bowl if we need him to, we got him. So that's where we are. And if Paul was not going to be here, we'd have to go get somebody else. We are still trying to find maybe a high-level PWO (preferred walk-on) to maybe come in and give us another arm as well to come in and compete. But we'll see how that goes. But if Paul wasn't here and we didn't feel like we feel about Trent, then we would probably have to go find somebody else.”