CLEMSON, S.C. — Maybe it’s the hair. This much, Cade Klubnik is willing to concede. It’s neatly trimmed, parted at the side, clean-cut, professional and, yeah, a pretty close resemblance to the cut worn by his coach, Dabo Swinney.
But Swinney isn’t stopping with the hair. Klubnik’s bone structure, his facial features, the way he carries himself, assured and energetic — it’s all downright Dabo-esque, he said. They’re cut from the same DNA.
“He could be my son,” Swinney said. “He hates when I tell him that.”
Clemson‘s sophomore quarterback can argue with the notion he resembles his 53-year-old coach, but spend enough time around the two and the Klubnik-Swinney Venn diagram looks increasingly like a near-perfect circle.
There’s the unrelenting optimism. Swinney has a habit of summing up even the most bitter defeats as a chance to learn more about his team and get better, and so it sounded awfully familiar when Klubnik shrugged off the worst throw of his freshman season — an interception against Notre Dame that turned into an Irish touchdown — as something he was thankful happened.
There’s the unassuming personality. Swinney carved out his niche in college football by being, for lack of a better word, goofy. He danced awkwardly in the locker room after wins, planned a pizza party for the entire campus upon Clemson’s first playoff berth, coined slogans such as “Bring your own guts” after a win against the Irish. Klubnik might not be quite as quotable at this point in his career, but he’s certainly not image-conscious either, his high school coach, Todd Dodge, said. Klubnik, like Swinney, was beloved at Westlake High in Austin because of how little they cared about creating a slick image.
“We didn’t want cool guys — guys who were more worried about their brand than their production,” Dodge said. “And Cade is probably the most uncool football player I’ve ever coached.”
Swinney’s life was built around football. Klubnik first picked up a ball when he was 3, and from then on, he almost never set it down. Though, this is one of the real distinctions between the two. Swinney was a walk-on at Alabama, a football obsessive whose true talent was in teaching the game to others. Klubnik was so good from such an early age that his future high school coach, Todd Dodge, pegged him a star when Klubnik was in the fifth grade. Dr. Newt Hasson, who was on the sideline for every Westlake High School game for 37 years calls Klubnik the best QB to ever play there, an assessment he said his best friend agrees with. Oh, and his best friend happens to be Chip Brees, whose son, Drew, starred at Westlake in the 1990s.
Swinney is unflinchingly competitive. After Klubnik’s middle school 7-on-7 team lost in the state championship game, he delivered a rousing speech, promising to return better than ever. The team won the next two titles.
Swinney savors every victory with Tolstoy-length postgame speeches, dancing, an endless parade of handshakes and hugs with every parent and recruit he sees. That’s Klubnik, too. After Westlake won the 2021 state championship at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, the team’s announcer was packing up to leave. The lights in the stadium were off, but he could make out a figure sprinting across the field, arms in the air, squealing with joy. It was, of course, Westlake’s quarterback.
Swinney has coached his share of greats at the position — Tajh Boyd, Deshaun Watson, Trevor Lawrence — but task some advanced artificial intelligence to create the perfect quarterback for Dabo Swinney, and it would spit out an image of Cade Klubnik.
“As human beings, in our work ethic, in the nonstop energy we give off, the leadership and the way we live,” Klubnik said, “we’re pretty similar.”
It’s fitting then that, after a two-year absence behind a malfunctioning offense, Clemson begins its quest for a return to the College Football Playoff tonight against Duke (8 ET on ESPN) with Swinney’s avatar on the field running the show and a renewed sense of optimism infiltrating every crevice of the locker room.
KLUBNIK WAS A high school sophomore when his mother posed a question: If he could play for any coach in the country, who would it be?
Klubnik didn’t hesitate. The kid from Austin, Texas, who’d never even traded text messages with recruiters from Clemson wanted to play for Swinney.
For his part, Swinney had no clue who Klubnik was at the time. Clemson was hot on another blue-chip quarterback, Ty Simpson, but late in the process, offensive coordinator Brandon Streeter popped on some Westlake game tape and told Swinney that, should things fall through with their top target, Klubnik looked like a strong Plan B.
Swinney watched the film and was impressed. He picked up the phone and called Klubnik, just to make an introduction.
Klubnik had more than 30 offers by this point, and Swinney was upfront about Clemson’s investment in landing Simpson. But, Swinney said, if things change, Klubnik would get the next offer.
The two kept in touch, and the more they talked, the more Swinney liked the kid. On the day before Simpson was scheduled to announce his decision, Swinney pulled Streeter aside and acknowledged the elephant in the room.
“This is weird, right?” Swinney said. “We have this chance to get this great QB tomorrow, but I don’t know. I really like Klubnik.”
In Austin, Klubnik was equally smitten. He had offers from the two places his mom, Kim Klubnik, described as “dream schools” — Texas A&M and Texas — but he couldn’t stop thinking about the connection he had with Clemson. After Klubnik demurred, A&M eventually landed on Conner Weigman, closing one door, and before Simpson made his choice, Klubnik faced a deadline with the Longhorns after getting an anonymous text from someone at Texas tipping him off that Maalik Murphy was scheduled to visit campus and likely to commit.
Klubnik made some calls and was told his best bet would be to commit to Texas. He could always change his mind later. But his high school coach put a different spin on the situation.
“There aren’t many things you have in this world that no one can take away from you,” Dodge said. “Your word is one of them.”
That sealed the deal for Klubnik. He knew where he wanted to play, and it wasn’t Texas.
“He let that window close on both [in-state schools] because he wanted to play at Clemson,” his father, Tod Klubnik, said.
By late February 2021, Simpson was ready to announce his choice. The night before his announcement, Swinney got a long text message from Kim Klubnik. She thanked him for recruiting her son, gushed over how much the process had meant to him, and how much she and Tod had enjoyed getting to know Swinney and his staff.
The next morning, Simpson called Swinney with news. He was going to Alabama.
Swinney’s next call was to Klubnik.
“And he just said, ‘Well, I’m committing,'” Swinney said. “It was one of the coolest moments. He knew exactly what he wanted to do.”
SWINNEY AND KLUBNIK beamed from the dais inside Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was Dec. 3, and the Tigers had just won the 2022 ACC championship. Klubnik was nearly perfect, completing 20 of 24 passes for 279 yards and accounting for two touchdowns.
“It was a great night,” Swinney said, “and a glimpse of our future.”
Missing from the conversation, however, was much discussion of the recent past.
If the ACC title game represented the official changing of the guard in Clemson’s quarterback room, the months that preceded it offered little foreshadowing.
Klubnik knew when he arrived on campus in January 2022 he’d open the year as a backup. DJ Uiagalelei had struggled throughout the 2021 season, but Swinney had given the veteran a heartfelt endorsement. For Swinney, Uiagalelei and Klubnik, there was no competition.
For everyone on the outside, the story was different. They’d seen Watson nab the starting job a month into his freshman season, then watched Lawrence do the same four years later, leading the Tigers to a national title in the process. Clemson fans wanted Klubnik to add to that legacy.
In Clemson’s opener, an easy win over Georgia Tech, Klubnik came on in garbage time and looked brilliant. Calls for a quarterback change began immediately, but Swinney emphatically backed his starter.
Six weeks later, Klubnik rescued Clemson from a halftime deficit against Syracuse — the result of three turnovers by Uiagalelei — and fans again assumed it was time to turn the offense over to the kid.
A week later, Klubnik got another chance in relief against Notre Dame. His first — and ultimately, his only — throw was intercepted in Clemson’s first loss of the year.
Then in the regular-season finale, Klubnik remained on the bench throughout a disastrous loss to rival South Carolina in which Uiagalelei completed just eight of 29 passes.
By this point, a hefty contingent of Clemson fans were outraged that the blue-chip freshman hadn’t taken over as QB1, but inside the locker room, the tenor was different.
Klubnik and Uiagalelei were tight, even rooming together on the road. The locker room was staunchly behind Uiagalelei, too, which made any change more difficult for the coaching staff. And for all of Klubnik’s potential, on most weeks, Uiagalelei simply practiced and played better, according to multiple sources inside the Clemson program.
“Me and DJ had a great relationship,” Klubnik said. “We still keep in touch a decent amount. I just tried to be his biggest supporter and make him the best he could be. When Coach made a change, he became that for me. People try to turn a bad eye or turn us against each other, but it was never like that.”
Truth is, Klubnik never pined for the starting job. He’d already learned the value of biding his time.
When Klubnik was in third grade, he’d met Nick Foles, a former Westlake quarterback. Kim Klubnik heard Foles would be attending a workout session in Austin, so she pulled Cade from school so her son could meet him. Years later, when Cade found himself involved in a three-way quarterback battle entering his sophomore year at Westlake, he emailed Foles for a little advice. Foles, who’d come off the bench and led the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl victory in the 2017 season, offered a lengthy reply imploring Klubnik to embrace his time as a backup.
Be the starter’s biggest fan, Foles said. Always take mental reps. Be patient. Learn.
Klubnik did as he was told, and by year’s end he’d helped Westlake to a state title.
At Clemson, he took the same approach, cheering on Uiagalelei and humbly sidestepping any questions about a quarterback controversy.
“I didn’t know if I was going to get to play in one week or in three years,” Klubnik said. “I just tried to stay confident in who I am and just learn, keep my head down and continue to work.”
That’s where Klubnik’s love for the game begins, his father said. It’s not that he didn’t want the starting job. It’s just that he didn’t mind biding his time because, for Klubnik, the time was still well spent.
“He loves the grind,” Tod Klubnik said. “It’s not that he doesn’t mind it. He loves it. He loves getting up early and working, staying late and watching film. He loves it. So last year, the whole year was the grind and getting better.”
On that dais after the ACC title game, Swinney admitted he’d actually thought Klubnik’s moment would come against Notre Dame. He’d played well in relief in the prior game, and he’d had an off-week to prep for the Irish.
This was all news to Klubnik. When Swinney made clear his freshman was the new face of the program less than an hour after the ACC championship game ended, it marked the first time Klubnik gave real thought to the job.
“I had so much trust in the coaches,” he said. “I came to Clemson for Coach Swinney and that staff to be a part of this culture, and with that is just trusting the coaches — whatever plan they had.”
IT WAS KLUBNIK’S low point of 2022 when he won over the locker room.
His first start for the Tigers came in last season’s Orange Bowl. It went poorly. He threw for 320 yards, but Clemson’s offense repeatedly bogged down in the red zone, Klubnik threw two picks and he was sacked four times. Tennessee won 31-14.
Klubnik took a beating in the game, but in the locker room he was upbeat. He hugged seniors who’d made their last appearance for Clemson. He promised better days to a group of players demoralized by the loss. He was mad about the outcome, too, though. That’s the thing that really came through, said Hunter Johnson, who’d spent the year as Clemson’s No. 3 quarterback.
“He took some shots, and he just kept going,” Johnson said. “After the game he was pretty beat, but it was obvious that didn’t matter to him. He just wanted to win that game.
“I was like, ‘OK, he’ll be a first-round pick, one of those guys who’s going to take Clemson all the way at some point.’ He’s just a winner. That’s just who he is.”
After the Orange Bowl, Swinney fired Streeter and brought in Garrett Riley to reinvigorate the offense. It was, as much as anything, an investment in Klubnik.
The new coach-QB pairing has been a good fit. If Klubnik oozes Swinney energy, he might have even more in common with Riley, a fellow Texan who exudes a palpable confidence that infects every corner of the locker room. Klubnik said the relationship has been a boon.
Uiagalelei transferred to Oregon State at year’s end, clearing the path for Klubnik to finally embrace his role as the centerpiece of Clemson’s locker room. It took a few months for him to become fully immersed in the role, but Swinney raved about Klubnik’s presence and leadership this summer.
A year ago, Klubnik wanted to be deferential in a locker room that had the utmost respect for the incumbent. Now, it’s Klubnik’s team, and it’s a role that suits him perfectly. He led offseason workouts, throws with his receivers constantly and even started a weekly Bible study for teammates at his apartment.
“I’m the leader, the player, the energy-bringer — back to normal me,” Klubnik said. “It’s been a heck of an offseason.”
Now, the job really begins.
Klubnik was happy to wait his turn last season. The time on the bench was never what bothered him. But he has won his whole life — not just games, but championships. That’s what drives him, and last year fell short of that benchmark.
“Last year, that was a good year,” he said. “But this year, we’ve got bigger goals.”
When Klubnik was in the eighth grade, his dad took him to see the Under Armour All-America Bowl in San Antonio. The boy was riveted. When they returned home, Cade taped his ticket stub to the mirror in his bedroom and made a promise: One day, he’d play in the game, too.
In 2022, he was named the game’s MVP.
As a freshman at Westlake, Klubnik was talking with teammates about the future and posed a question: What if Westlake won the next three state titles?
At the time, the Chaparrals had just one state championship in their history. With Klubnik at quarterback, however, they won in 2019, 2020 and again in 2021.
When Klubnik puts his mind to something, he wills it into reality. He still has a whiteboard he uses to track his goals. That’s where the national title sits now, an aspiration written in marker. But soon, more will be written. It has to be.
“Cade always says it’s not a dream,” his mother, Kim, said. “It’s a plan.”
SEATTLE — Cal Raleigh hit his 34th and 35th home runs to set a career high and match Ken Griffey Jr.’s Seattle record for homers before the All-Star break, helping the Mariners beat the Pittsburgh Pirates6-0 on Friday.
Raleigh, the major league leader in home runs, turned on a fastball from Bailey Falter (6-4) in the first inning and walloped it well past the wall in left. The exit velocity on the two-run shot was logged at 115.2 mph, per Statcast, making it the hardest-hit ball of his career.
Raleigh topped his previous career high for homers, set last season, in the sixth with a solo shot that chased Falter. The Mariners mustered only one other hit off the left-hander, but it was also a home run courtesy of Randy Arozarena in the fourth inning.
Raleigh’s 35 homers are tied for the fifth most in MLB history before the All-Star break (since 1933), matching Griffey in 1998 and Luis Gonzalez in 2001. Barry Bonds holds the record with 39 at the break in 2001.
Raleigh said he was honored to tie Griffey, whom he called the face of the Mariners.
“To be mentioned with that name, somebody that’s just iconic, a legend, first-ballot Hall of Famer, I’m just blessed,” Raleigh said. “Trying to do the right thing and trying to keep it rolling. If I can try to be like that guy, it’s a good guy to look up to.”
Raleigh is on pace to hit 65 home runs this season, which would break New York Yankees star Aaron Judge‘s American League record of 62, set in 2022.
Manager Dan Wilson, who was a teammate of Griffey Jr.’s in 1998, tried to put Raleigh’s fast start to 2025 in perspective.
“It’s remarkable. It feels like he hits a home run every game, that’s what it feels like,” Wilson said. “And I can remember feeling it as a player, that [Griffey] just felt like he hit a home run every day. Again, that’s the consistency that [Raleigh] has shown. It hasn’t been a streak where he has hit a bunch of home runs in a short amount of time. It’s been kind of 10 per month.”
A switch-hitter, Raleigh has more home runs as a left-handed hitter and as a right-handed hitter than anyone else on the Mariners: He has 21 from the left side and 14 from the right. Arozarena ranks second on Seattle with 13 homers this season.
The Mariners play eight more games before the All-Star break.
The Associated Press and ESPN Research contributed to this report.
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers suffered their worst loss ever in Dodger Stadium, an 18-1 blowout at the hands of the Houston Astros on Friday night in the series opener of a matchup between division leaders.
The 17-run loss marked the Dodgers’ largest margin of defeat at home since the team moved to Dodger Stadium in 1962, and the franchise’s worst home loss since July 3, 1947, when Brooklyn lost 19-2 to the New York Giants.
Jose Altuve homered twice while reaching base five times and driving in five runs for the Astros, who held the defending World Series champion Dodgers to six hits including Will Smith‘s solo homer.
“That was one you want to flush as soon as possible,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I don’t think there were many positives from this night.”
Dodgers fans relentlessly booed Altuve throughout his at-bats, chanting, “Cheater! Cheater!” He’s one of two players, along with Lance McCullers Jr., remaining from Houston’s 2017 team that beat the Dodgers in the World Series. It later came out that the Astros were stealing signs with the help of video and relaying pitches to batters by banging on a trash can.
The AL West-leading Astros scored 10 runs in the sixth, highlighted by Victor Caratini‘s grand slam and Altuve’s three-run shot. It was the most runs given up in an inning by the Dodgers since April 23, 1999, when they allowed 11 to St. Louis.
McCullers (2-3) allowed one run and four hits in six innings of his second start since returning from a sprained right foot. He struck out four.
Isaac Paredes hit his first career leadoff homer on the first pitch of the game from rookie Ben Casparius. Altuve doubled and scored on Christian Walker‘s RBI single for a 2-0 lead.
Jake Meyers doubled leading off the third and scored on Altuve’s 14th homer. Rookie Cam Smith doubled and scored on Walker’s 417-foot shot halfway up the left-field pavilion to cap four straight hits given up by Casparius and extend Houston’s lead to 6-1.
“I don’t think Ben was good tonight,” Roberts said. “It seemed like they were on everything he threw up there.”
The Astros broke it open in the sixth. Smith had a bases-loaded RBI single, reliever Noah Davis hit Walker with two strikes on him to force in a run and Caratini hit his slam with no outs. Meyers added an RBI single, and Altuve hit his second homer of the night.
Casparius allowed six runs and nine hits in three innings and struck out three.
PHILADELPHIA — Mick Abel couldn’t sustain his sublime major league debut and is headed to the minors.
Taijuan Walker is back in Philadelphia’s rotation. And anticipation that prized prospect Andrew Painter could be headed to the Phillies will stretch past the All-Star break.
The Phillies demoted Abel, the rookie right-hander who has struggled since he struck out nine in his major league debut, to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. The Phillies also recalled reliever Seth Johnson from Lehigh Valley ahead of Friday’s loss to Cincinnati.
The 23-year-old Abel made six starts for the Phillies and went 2-2 with 5.04 ERA with 21 strikeouts and nine walks.
“Mick needed to go down and breathe a little bit,” manager Rob Thomson said. “Just get a little reset. It’s not uncommon.”
A 6-foot-5 right-hander selected 15th overall by the Phillies in the 2020 amateur draft, Abel dazzled against Pittsburgh in May when his nine strikeouts tied a Phillies high for a debut, set by Curt Simmons against the New York Giants on Sept. 28, 1947.
Abel hasn’t pitched beyond the fifth inning in any of his last four starts and was rocked for five runs in 1⅔ innings Wednesday against San Diego.
Abel was 3-12 with a 6.46 ERA last year for Lehigh Valley, walking 78 in 108⅔ innings. He improved to 5-2 with a 2.53 ERA in eight minor league starts this year, walking 19 in 46⅓ innings.
“This guy’s had a really good year,” Thomson said. “His poise, his composure is outstanding. He’s really grown. We just need to get back to that. Just attack the zone and get through adversity.”
The Phillies will give Walker another start in Abel’s place against San Francisco. Walker has bounced between the rotation and the bullpen over the past two seasons. He has made eight starts with 11 relief appearances this season and is 3-5 with one save and a 3.64 ERA.
Thomson had said he wanted to give Walker an extended look in the bullpen. Abel’s struggles instead forced Walker — in the third year of a four-year, $72-million contract — back to the rotation. For now.
“He always considers himself a starter and ultimately wants to start,” Thomson said. “He’ll do anything for the ballclub, because he’s that type of guy, but I think he’s generally happy he’s going to go back into a normal routine, normal for him, anyway.”
Wheeler, Suárez and Sánchez have been lights-out in the rotation this year and helped lead the Phillies into first place in the NL East. Jesús Luzardo was a pleasant early season surprise but has struggled over the past two months and gave up six runs in two-plus innings in Friday’s 9-6 loss to the Reds.
“I still have all the confidence in the world in Luzardo,” Thomson said. “Everybody’s going to have bad outings here and there. I think we’re still fine.”
Thomson said he had not made a final decision on who will be the fifth starter after the All-Star break. Painter has two more scheduled starts in Triple-A before the MLB All-Star break and could earn a spot in the rotation. The 22-year-old will not pitch in the All-Star Futures Game as part of the plan to keep him on a hopeful path to the rotation.
Painter hurt an elbow during spring training in 2023 and had Tommy John surgery later that year. He was the 13th overall pick in the 2021 amateur draft and signed for a $3.9 million bonus.
Because of the All-Star break and a quirk in the schedule that has them off on all five Thursdays in July, the Phillies won’t even need a fifth starter after next week until July 22.
Aaron Nola could be back by August as he works his way back from a rib injury. Nola will spend the All-Star break rehabbing in Florida and needs one or two minor league starts before he can rejoin the rotation.