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Texas and Penn State, the top two teams in The Associated Press preseason Top 25, each had three players selected for the preseason AP All-America team announced Monday.

No. 1 Texas had one player from each level of its defense on the first team: edge rusher Colin Simmons, linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. and safety Michael Taaffe. No. 2 Penn State’s picks were running back Nicholas Singleton, offensive lineman Olaivavega Ioane and defensive lineman Zane Durant.

No. 3 Ohio State, No. 4 Clemson, No. 6 Notre Dame, No. 8 Alabama and Pittsburgh each had two players on the first team.

The Southeastern Conference had 12 players on the 27-man first team determined by media members on the AP Top 25 voting panel. The Big Ten had seven players, the ACC four and the Big 12 two.

Clemson’s Cade Klubnik was the overwhelming preseason choice for first-team quarterback after throwing for 3,639 yards with 39 touchdowns and just six interceptions.

Ohio State safety Caleb Downs and Florida center Jake Slaughter are returning first-team AP All-Americans.

Downs, whose late interception against Texas helped wrap up a College Football Playoff semifinal win for defending champion Ohio State, starred as a freshman at Alabama two years ago and established himself as the nation’s top safety in his first season with the Buckeyes. He’s a projected top-three pick in the 2026 NFL draft.

Downs was joined on the preseason-All-America first team by Buckeyes receiver Jeremiah Smith.

Slaughter, a leading candidate for the Rimington Trophy as the nation’s top center, played 800 snaps in his breakout season for the Gators. He allowed just one sack and was among the highest-rated run and pass blockers in the country, according to Pro Football Focus.

The AP All-America team for this season will be released in December. It will mark the 100th anniversary of the first team published in 1925.

First-team offense

Quarterback – Cade Klubnik, fourth year, Clemson.

Running backs – Jeremiyah Love, third year, Notre Dame; Nicholas Singleton, fourth year, Penn State.

Tackles – Spencer Fano, fourth year, Utah; Kadyn Proctor, third year, Alabama.

Guards – Olaivavega Ioane, fourth year, Penn State; Ar’maj Reed-Adams, sixth year, Texas A&M.

Center – Jake Slaughter, fifth year, Florida.

Tight end – Eli Stowers, fifth year, Vanderbilt.

Wide receivers – Jeremiah Smith, second year, Ohio State; Ryan Williams, second year, Alabama; Jordyn Tyson, fourth year, Arizona State.

All-purpose player – Desmond Reid, fourth year, Pittsburgh.

Kicker – Dominic Zvada, fourth year, Michigan.

First-team defense

Edge – Dylan Stewart, second year, South Carolina; Colin Simmons, second year, Texas.

Tackles – Peter Woods, third year, Clemson; Zane Durant, fourth year, Penn State.

Linebackers – Anthony Hill Jr., third year, Texas; Whit Weeks, third year, LSU; Kyle Louis, fourth year, Pittsburgh.

Cornerbacks – Leonard Moore, second year, Notre Dame; Jermod McCoy, third year, Tennessee.

Safeties – Caleb Downs, third year, Ohio State; Dillon Thieneman, third year, Oregon.

Defensive back – Michael Taaffe, fifth year, Texas.

Punter – Brett Thorson, fourth year, Georgia.

Second-team offense

Quarterback – Garrett Nussmeier, fifth year, LSU.

Running backs – Makhi Hughes, fourth year, Oregon; Isaac Brown, second year, Louisville.

Tackles – Francis Mauigoa, third year, Miami; Blake Miller, fourth year, Clemson.

Guards – Cayden Green, third year, Missouri; Keylan Rutledge, fourth year, Georgia Tech.

Center – Parker Brailsford, fourth year, Alabama.

Tight end – Max Klare, fourth year, Ohio State.

Wide receivers – Antonio Williams, fourth year, Clemson; Elijah Sarratt, fourth year, Indiana; Cam Coleman, second year, Auburn.

All-purpose player – Kaytron Allen, fourth year, Penn State.

Kicker – Peyton Woodring, third year, Georgia.

Second-team defense

Edge – T.J. Parker, third year, Clemson; Matayo Uiagalelei, third year, Oregon.

Tackles – Tim Keenan III, fifth year, Alabama; Christen Miller, fourth year, Georgia.

Linebackers – Taurean York, third year, Texas A&M; Harold Perkins Jr., fourth year, LSU; Aiden Fisher, fourth year, Indiana.

Cornerbacks – Chandler Rivers, fourth year, Duke; D’Angelo Ponds, third year, Indiana.

Safeties – Koi Perich, second year, Minnesota; KJ Bolden, second year, Georgia.

Defensive back – Jalon Kilgore, third year, South Carolina.

Punter – Ryan Eckley, fourth year, Michigan State.

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‘Building stuff is fun, man’: How Diego Pavia helped Vanderbilt rise from its ruins

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'Building stuff is fun, man': How Diego Pavia helped Vanderbilt rise from its ruins

It is so hard for anyone to stand out in Nashville because everyone in Nashville is always trying so hard to stand out.

All of those off-the-bus would-be country music stars, performing in so many Broadway bars owned by so many actual stars, entertaining all those bachelorettes in pink cowboy hats and those dudes who look like they are attending a Luke Combs lookalike contest. Music City, USA is always a good time, but it also becomes very repetitive. This town aches for someone to come along and finally snap it out of its endless two-stepping loop. Say, a big-haired blond woman from Sevierville, Tennessee. Or a Man in Black on the train a-comin’ from Folsom. Maybe a girl from a Christmas tree farm in eastern Pennsylvania.

Or a Bama-beating water bug of a quarterback who rolled in off a desert wind that blew in from New Mexico.

“Straight out the dirt, son,” Diego Pavia says, the 24-year-old laughing as he sits up and slaps his hand on a meeting room table in Vanderbilt football’s quarterbacks meeting room. “When I first got here, you would walk down to Broadway and everyone had on Alabama stuff or Georgia stuff or the bars would just have Tennessee flags out front. Now I see a lot of Vandy V’s out there. I think maybe people didn’t see that coming. Just like they didn’t see me coming.”

They see him now. We all do. One year ago, we saw the 6-foot QB (well, that’s how tall the Vanderbilt media guide says he is, but most everyone lists him at 5-10 … but, when a 5-10 sportswriter looks him in the eye, he might be 5-9 … but who cares because he’s also built like a BMW X4) lead the Commodores to the program’s first winning season, first stint in the AP Top 25 and first bowl win since the 2013 campaign. On Oct. 5, 2024, we saw him emulate his childhood hero, Johnny Manziel, by running past No. 1 Alabama, Vandy’s first win over the Tide in 40 years and first win over a top-5 team ever, ending an 0-60 drought.

And in more recent days, the world has seen Pavia at SEC media days and on Netflix, proclaiming that longtime lowly SEC cellar dweller Vandy can be a national title contender. And as the world entered last weekend, it did so dancing along with No. 2 in a music video that dropped for the song “Pavia Mafia,” as artist Axel Varela declared: “From the 505 to the world, baby!” and “Yo me enamoré del juego,” which translates to “I fell in love with the game.”

What none of us saw were those days when that love affair began for Pavia. It was on the outskirts of Albuquerque, where he grew up as the third of four children, with two older brothers and a kid sister. They were raised by Antoinette Padilla, who found herself in the role of a single mother as Diego was becoming a teenager and realized that her job as a front desk office worker wasn’t going to cover the bills. She had grown up as one of 14 siblings, also in a single-parent home, and refused to put her kids through that same struggle. So she enrolled in nursing school.

“I remember all of her books and papers spread out all over the kitchen table,” Pavia recalls. “She would cook dinner for us and we’d all eat and I’d see she hadn’t eaten anything. I’d ask her about it and she’d just say, ‘Oh, I’m not hungry.’ Now I realize that she was hungry, but that’s all we had. We were kids, so all we knew was that ‘we good, man.’ But now we know it’s because she was always sacrificing.”

Padilla was also always working. Once she began her career as a long-term care nurse, she refused to be saddled with the loans she had taken out to pay for school. She studied house flipping and started buying fixer-uppers around Albuquerque. And who do you think did the fixing?

“We would work in the yards, paint, install new windows, all of it, as kids,” Pavia says with a little shake of his head. “She would rent them out, save up and then sell them. Then she started doing cars on the side. Buy a car cheap at auction, for like $2,000, fix it up and resell it for $6,000.”

So, if one were to buy a house with windows installed or a car detailed by 13-year-old Diego Pavia, were they going to be happy with the results?

“I haven’t received any complaints yet, man.”

In their mother’s sizable wake, the three boys attacked every aspect of their lives at full throttle, especially when it came to football and wrestling. Oldest brother Roel participated in both sports at Briar Cliff University, an NAIA school in Sioux City, Iowa. Just as Mom had shown Diego how to scramble out of debt, his brother showed him the benefits of attending college.

“As he got older, he developed into a rock,” Roel says. “He hit that growth spurt and it was all muscle. That’s when the older brothers stop picking on little brother because little brother can kick your ass.”

That growth was in the shoulders and legs. It was not in height. So, even as Diego led the Volcano Vista Hawks to a perfect regular season and the state semifinals, no one in Division I college football gave the QB a serious look. But what hurt the most was when the hometown New Mexico Lobos said they were passing not because they thought he was too small, but because he was too cocky.

“He still isn’t over that one,” Vandy football consultant Jerry Kill says with a laugh. “I don’t think he ever will be over that one. That’s always been part of his gasoline.”

Instead, Pavia settled for New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, where he led his team to the 2021 junior college national title. That night, his heroics for the Broncos were being shown on local New Mexico television. Bellied up to the bar in the Las Cruces Hooters were Kill and longtime mentee Tim Beck, the just-hired head coach and offensive coordinator at New Mexico State. They were watching the game to scout a quarterback — initially, Pavia’s opponent. But when the fire hydrant playing QB for NMMI ran through Iowa Western for a 34-yard touchdown and an early 14-0 lead, Kill looked at Beck and said, “Hell, man, we’ve been watching the wrong guy.”

That wrong guy became the right guy for the New Mexico State Aggies, as Pavia led the bottom-10 stalwart to a 7-6 record in 2022. The following year, the Aggies went 10-5, the program’s first double-digit-win season in more than six decades. Pavia most relished the Aggies’ win over New Mexico in Albuquerque, even more than their stunning upset at Auburn. Unfortunately, he went viral after that Rio Grande Rivalry win when video surfaced of him urinating on the UNM logo at its indoor practice facility. That incident came up again at season’s end, when New Mexico State earned an invite to the New Mexico Bowl, hosted by the Lobos, and the Aggies weren’t allowed to use that facility to prepare for the game.

“That was embarrassing and inexcusable and no one knows that more than Diego Pavia,” Kill says. “But I also told you he was still mad about what happened coming out of high school.”

“We all make mistakes,” Pavia admits now.

When Kill retired following that magical 2022 season, Pavia nearly made another mistake, though at the time most believed his mistake to be the decision that he made, not the one he backed out on. Suddenly a hot commodity at the dawn of the NIL era, Pavia accepted an invite and a nice payout to transfer from New Mexico State to Nevada. Then his phone rang. It was Kill, whose retirement had lasted all of a few weeks.

“I went to Las Cruces to try and convince Tim Beck to come help us with our offense,” Clark Lea says of the trip he took in late fall 2023, just as he had wrapped up his third season as head coach at Vanderbilt, his alma mater. It was a crushingly disappointing year, the Commodores starting 2-0 but finishing 2-10. “Jerry sat in on some of our conversations and we all connected immediately.”

Soon Beck was headed to Nashville with several of his offensive players in tow. Kill tells the story that he was on the beach in Mexico, three margaritas deep, when Beck and Lea finally convinced him to join them. Pavia tells the story that Kill then called him and said, “Don’t make a mistake and go to Nevada. I’m moving to Nashville and you’re coming with me.”

Pavia loves Kill and Beck so much that he made the move without hesitation, even leaving money on the table at Nevada. He also refused to leave Vandy after the storybook tale of 2024, telling the “Bussin’ With The Boys” podcast that he had passed on a $4 million-plus NIL offer from an SEC rival to remain in Music City. What’s more, he won an injunction versus the NCAA for one more year of eligibility, instead of being penalized for time served at the junior college level.

“I think that it is easy to see the guy who likes to talk a little and who likes to celebrate a lot and think, ‘Oh, he’s that guy,'” Lea says. “But look at what he has done to be here and stay here, and look at the 50 people who come from New Mexico to be with his family at our games. That’s someone who loves this place.

“Talk to our basketball office or [Vandy baseball head coach] Tim Corbin, and they will tell you that Diego is in their offices, asking about what it takes to win. He has big dreams for himself, but he came here and all of those people come here with him because they love it here.”

Now, everyone else is coming, too, to be with the Pavia Mafia to watch college football at, of all places, Vanderbilt. Yes, he is most definitely prone to hyperbole, but Pavia’s observation about the gentle transfusion of black and gold into the college football identity of the bars along the Cumberland River is no exaggeration. It’s visible. As are the construction cranes that cover FirstBank Stadium, long the SEC’s time capsule of football venues, and the ground being broken to replace the team’s cramped subterranean 1990s football facilities.

All of that renovation was already on the books before Pavia arrived. But the kid who used to flip houses with his mother has injected that sweat equity investment mentality into Nashville’s business community and Vanderbilt’s alumni base.

Nashville is a city that has been constructed atop the idea of having a good time. Residents and visitors alike have never had a problem finding that good time everywhere from Tootsies to the Titans. Now, thanks to the QB that no one saw coming, they are discovering a good time at a place that has been hiding in plain sight since it hosted the state of Tennessee’s first college football game in 1890.

“Building stuff is fun, man,” Pavia says. “It isn’t easy. But nothing worth it is ever easy. So when that work pays off, let’s enjoy it, Vandy. We earned it because we built it.”

Straight out the dirt?

“Straight out the damn dirt.”

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Overreactions to the dog days of August: Brewers’ dominance, Mets’ struggles and more from the NL

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Overreactions to the dog days of August: Brewers' dominance, Mets' struggles and more from the NL

Whew. That was some weekend. The Milwaukee Brewers kept winning — until they finally lost. The New York Mets kept losing — until they finally won. The Los Angeles Dodgers made a big statement, the Philadelphia Phillies suffered a crushing injury, and the Chicago Cubs managed to win a series even though their bats remain cold.

What’s going on with these National League contenders? With fan bases in euphoria or despair, let’s make some verdicts on those current states of overreaction.


Overreaction: The Brewers are unquestionably MLB’s best team

“Unquestionably” is a loaded word, especially since we’re writing this right after the Brewers reeled off 14 consecutive victories and won a remarkable 29 of 33 games. They became just the 11th team this century to win at least 14 in a row, and you don’t fluke your way to a 14-game winning streak: Each of the previous 10 teams to win that many in a row made the playoffs, and four won 100 games. Baseball being baseball, however, none won the World Series.

The Brewers were just the sixth team this century to win 29 of 33. Cleveland won 30 of 33 in 2017, riding a 22-game winning streak that began in late August. That team, which finished with 102 wins but lost the wild-card series to the New York Yankees, resembled these Brewers as a small-market, scrappy underdog. The Dodgers in 2017 and 2022 and the A’s in 2001 and 2002 also won 29 of 33. None of these teams won the World Series, either.

For the season, the Brewers have five more wins than the Detroit Tigers while easily leading the majors in run differential at plus-168, with the Cubs a distant second at plus-110. Those figures seem to suggest the Brewers are clearly the best team, with a nice balance of starting pitching (No. 1 in ERA), relief pitching (No. 10 in ERA and No. 8 in win probability added), offense (No. 1 in runs scored), defense (No. 7 in defensive runs saved) and baserunning (No. 2 in stolen bases). None of their position players were All-Stars, but other than shortstop Joey Ortiz the Brewers roll out a lineup that usually features eight average-or-better hitters, with Christian Yelich heating up and Andrew Vaughn on a tear since he joined the club.

On the other hand, via Clay Davenport’s third-order wins and losses, which project a team’s winning percentage based on underlying statistics adjusted for quality of opponents, the Brewers are neck-and-neck with the Cubs, with both teams a few projected wins behind the Yankees. Essentially, the Brewers have scored more runs and allowed fewer than might otherwise be expected based on statistics. Indeed, the Brewers lead the majors with a .288 average with runners in scoring position while holding their opponents to the third-lowest average with runners in scoring position.

Those underlying stats, though, include the first four games of the season, when the Brewers went 0-4 and allowed 47 runs. Several of those relievers who got pounded early on are no longer in the bullpen, and ever since the Brewers sorted out their relief arms, the pen has been outstanding: It’s sixth in ERA and third in lowest OPS allowed since May 1.

Then factor in that the Brewers now have Brandon Woodruff and Jacob Misiorowski in the rotation (although Misiorowski struggled in his last start following a two-week stint on the injured list). The Brewers are also the best baserunning team in the majors, which leads to a few extra runs above expectation.

VERDICT: NOT AN OVERREACTION. The Brewers look like the most well-rounded team in the majors, particularly if Yelich and Vaughn keep providing power in the middle of the order. They have played well against good teams: 6-0 against the Dodgers, 3-0 against the Phillies and Boston Red Sox, 4-2 against the New York Mets and 7-3 against the Cincinnati Reds. They’re 5-4 against the Cubs with four games left in the five-game series. None of this guarantees a World Series, but they’re on pace to win 100 games because they are the best team going right now.


Overreaction: Pete Crow-Armstrong‘s struggles are a big concern

On July 30, PCA went 3-for-4 with two doubles and two runs in a 10-3 victory for the Cubs over the Brewers. He was hitting .272/.309/.559, playing electrifying defense in center field, and was the leader in the NL MVP race with 5.7 fWAR, more than a win higher than Fernando Tatis Jr. and Shohei Ohtani. The Brewers had started to get hot, but the Cubs, after leading the NL Central most of the season, were just a game behind in the standings.

July 31 was an off day. Then the calendar flipped to August and Crow-Armstrong entered a slump that has featured no dying quails, no gorks, no ground balls with eyes. He’s 8-for-52 in August with no home runs, one RBI and two runs scored. The Cubs, averaging 5.3 runs per game through the end of July, are at just 2.75 runs per game in August and have seen the Brewers build a big lead in the division.

Crow-Armstrong’s slump isn’t necessarily a surprise. Analysts have been predicting regression for some time due to one obvious flaw in PCA’s game: He swings at everything. He has the fifth-highest chase rate among qualified batters, swinging at over 42% of pitches out of the strike zone. It seemed likely that it was only a matter of time before pitchers figured out how to exploit Crow-Armstrong’s aggressiveness.

Doubling down on the regression predictions, PCA has produced strong power numbers despite a below-average hard-hit rate (44th percentile) and average exit velocity (47th percentile). Although raw power isn’t always necessary to produce extra-base power — see Jose Altuve — those metrics were a red flag that PCA might have been overachieving.

VERDICT: NOT AN OVERREACTION. OK, here’s the odd thing: PCA’s chase rate has improved in August to just 28%, but that hasn’t translated to success. His hard-hit rate isn’t much lower than it was the rest of the season (although his average fly ball distance has dropped about 20 feet). His struggles against left-handers are real: After slugging .600 against them in April, he has hit .186 and slugged .390 against them since May 1. He’ll start hitting again at some point, but it’s reasonable to assume he’s not going to hit like he did from April through July.

It’s not all on PCA, however. Kyle Tucker has been just as bad in August (.148, no home runs, one RBI). Michael Busch is hitting .151. Seiya Suzuki has only one home run. Those four had carried the offense, and all are scuffling at once. For the Cubs to rebound, they need this entire group to get back on track. Put it this way: The Cubs have won just three of their past eight series — and those were against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox.


Overreaction: The Mets are doomed and will miss the playoffs

On July 27, the Mets completed a three-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants to improve to 62-44, holding a 1½-game lead over the Phillies in the NL East. According to FanGraphs, New York’s odds of winning the division stood at 55% and its chances of making the playoffs were nearly 97%. A few days later, the Mets reinforced the bullpen — the club’s biggest weakness — with Ryan Helsley and Tyler Rogers at the trade deadline (after already acquiring Gregory Soto).

It’s never that easy with the Mets though, is it? The San Diego Padres swept them. The Cleveland Guardians swept them. The Brewers swept them. Helsley lost three games and blew a lead in another outing. The rotation has a 6.22 ERA in August. The Mets lost 14 of 16 before finally taking the final two games against the Seattle Mariners this past weekend to temporarily ease the panic level from DEFCON 1 to DEFCON 2. The Phillies have a comfortable lead in the division and the Mets have dropped to the third wild-card position, just one game ahead of the Reds. The team with the highest payroll in the sport is in very real danger of missing the playoffs.

VERDICT: OVERREACTION. The bullpen issues are still a concern given Helsley’s struggles, and Rogers has fanned just one of the 42 batters he has faced since joining the Mets. Still, this team is loaded with talent, as reflected in FanGraphs’ playoffs odds, which gave the Mets an 86% chance of making the postseason entering Monday (with the Reds at 14%). One note, however: The Reds lead the season series 2 games to 1, which gives them the tiebreaker edge if the teams finish with the same record. A three-game set in Cincinnati in early September looms as one of the biggest series the rest of the season. Mets fans have certainly earned the right to brood over the team’s current state of play, but the team remains favored to at least squeak out a wild card.


Overreaction: Zack Wheeler’s absence is a big problem for the Phillies

The Phillies’ ace just went on the IL because of a blood clot near his right shoulder, with no timetable on a potential return. The injury is serious enough that his availability for the rest of the season is in jeopardy. Manager Rob Thomson said the team has enough rotation depth to battle on without Wheeler, but there are some other issues there as well:

Ranger Suarez has a 5.86 ERA in six starts since the All-Star break.

Aaron Nola was activated from the IL on Sunday to replace Wheeler for his first MLB start in three months and gave up six runs in 2⅓ innings, raising his season ERA to 6.92.

Taijuan Walker has a 3.34 ERA but also a 4.73 FIP and probably isn’t someone you would feel comfortable starting in a playoff series.

• Even Jesus Luzardo has been inconsistent all season, with a 4.21 ERA.

Minus Wheeler, that arguably leaves Cristopher Sanchez as the team’s only sure-thing reliable starter at the moment. Though a trip to the playoffs certainly looks secure, all this opens the door for the Mets to make it a race for the division title.

VERDICT: NOT AN OVERREACTION. Making the playoffs is one thing, but it’s also about peaking at the right time, and given the scary nature of Wheeler’s injury, the Phillies might not end up peaking when they need to. Nola certainly can’t be counted on right now and Suarez has suddenly struggled a bit to miss bats. There’s time here for Nola and Suarez to fix things, and the bullpen has been strengthened with the additions of Jhoan Duran and David Robertson, but even with Wheeler, the Phillies are just 22-18 since the beginning of July. Indeed, their ultimate hopes might rest on an offense that has let them down the past two postseasons and hasn’t been great this season aside from Kyle Schwarber. If they don’t score runs, it won’t matter who is on the mound.


Overreaction: The Dodgers just buried the Padres with their three-game sweep

It was a statement series: The Dodgers, battled, bruised and slumping, had fallen a game behind the Padres in the NL West. But they swept the Padres at Dodger Stadium behind stellar outings from Clayton Kershaw and Blake Snell, and a clutch Mookie Betts home run to cap a rally from a 4-0 deficit. Still the kings of the NL West, right?

After all, the Dodgers are finally rolling out that dream rotation: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, Snell and Kershaw are all healthy and at full strength for the first time this season. Only Roki Sasaki is missing. Yamamoto has been solid all season, Ohtani ramped up to 80 pitches in his last start, Glasnow has a 2.50 ERA since returning from the IL in July, Snell has reeled off back-to-back scoreless starts, and even Kershaw, while not racking up many strikeouts, has lowered his season ERA to 3.01. That group should carry the Dodgers to their 12th division title in the past 13 seasons.

VERDICT: OVERREACTION. Calm down. One great series does not mean the Dodgers are suddenly fixed or that the Padres will fade away. The Dodgers’ bullpen is still battling injuries, Betts still has a sub-.700 OPS and injuries have forced them to play Alex Freeland, Miguel Rojas and Buddy Kennedy in the infield. Check back after next weekend, when the Padres host the Dodgers for their final regular-season series of 2025.

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Klubnik on Dabo support: Others said ‘I sucked’

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Klubnik on Dabo support: Others said 'I sucked'

CLEMSON, S.C. — Cade Klubnik read the comments on social media.

He heard the chatter around him, about how he simply wasn’t good enough to be the starting quarterback for the Clemson Tigers. He heard fans clamoring for coach Dabo Swinney to tap the transfer portal and find a quality replacement.

It was all coming to a head after Klubnik’s sophomore season in 2023, a year in which the Tigers struggled early but closed with five straight wins to finish 9-4. While that might be considered a good season for some schools, it was a down year for Clemson, snapping a streak of 12 straight double-digit-win seasons and leaving the Tigers out of the College Football Playoff for the second straight year.

There were questions about whether Clemson’s run was over, and much of the blame fell on Klubnik’s shoulders after throwing just 19 touchdown passes with nine interceptions that season.

“Everybody kind of told me I sucked, and wasn’t very good,” Klubnik said. “A lot of people wanted me out of Clemson.”

About two weeks after the Tigers’ 38-35 win over Kentucky in the Gator Bowl, Klubnik was still relatively uncertain about his status at Clemson and that’s when Swinney called Klubnik into his office and put any speculation about his future to rest.

As he sat across from Klubnik, Swinney told him directly: “I believe in you.”

“To have somebody that I look up to and believe in, tell me that he believes in me, it just filled me with confidence,” Klubnik said. “He could have gone and done what a lot of other coaches would do [and find a transfer quarterback], but he didn’t.””

Klubnik called it a moment in life he’ll never forget. He left Swinney’s office more confident than ever, and eager to reward his coach for the faith he showed in him. And Klubnik did just that.

Klubnik piled up more than 4,000 yards from scrimmage and 42 touchdowns last season while leading Clemson to its eighth ACC championship in 10 years with an MVP performance that included four touchdowns in a dramatic 34-31 win over SMU in the title game. The victory assured the Tigers a return to the playoff, where they lost 38-24 to Texas in the first round.

Now Klubnik enters his final season at Clemson as a likely Heisman Trophy contender and the fourth-ranked Tigers are expected to compete for a national championship.

“When you sign up to do this, whether you’re a coach at this level or certainly play the quarterback position, there’s a lot of criticism,” Swinney said. “I just knew there was going to be a lot of noise. He’s a young person and I just felt like it was important that I let him know that that I fully believed in him. I didn’t want him worrying about me going out and getting another guy. I wanted him to know, hey, you’re my guy.”

Added Swinney: “I told him if it don’t work out, then I’m going down with you.”

Swinney has been around college football for more than three decades and has won two national titles at Clemson, so he knows a thing or two about player development. He said one of the most difficult parts of coaching college football in today’s world is having the patience to develop a quarterback while remaining competitive.

Swinney saw enough in Klubnik after his sophomore season to believe he had plenty of potential.

“You know, this is a developmental game,” Swinney said. “We forget that because now we’re in this world where if you’re not great as a freshman it’s, oh well, you stink. And then you move on to the next guy.”

Tigers wide receiver Antonio Williams, who figures to be Klubnik’s primary target in the passing game, said off the field his quarterback is “kind of laid-back and goofy.” But Williams said Klubnik was all business last season.

“He’s definitely growing up a lot,” Williams said. “When it comes to leadership, he’s definitely been more vocal, and he has the respect of all the guys in the locker room. So when he speaks, everybody listens. That respect has gone a long way for him.”

Swinney called Klubnik an “amazing human being” and he continues to believe in him, perhaps on a run to the Tigers’ first national title since 2018.

“He’s got a lot of great days ahead,” Swinney said. “And you need a little luck, you know. I know everybody wants to make all these predictions and things like that, but you predict your way in anything. You gotta go do it. I know this if if that guy stays healthy, we will have a chance. He’s going to always give you a chance.”

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