Cade Klubnik Prospect Profile
Background
Klubnik burst onto the football scene at the famous Westlake High School in Austin, Texas—the same school that has produced the Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks Drew Brees and Nick Foles. Klubnik went on to set school records for career passing yards and touchdowns at Westlake while leading Westlake to three Texas 6A state titles. He was an On3 industry-rated 5-star recruit, and the number one-rated QB in the class of 2022, and the number 18 player overall nationally. He committed to join Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers and enrolled in 2022.
Physical Attributes
Klubnik is a straight line athlete. In his 2024 campaign, he was clocked at 21+ MPH on a run, but much like other QBs who have hit those speeds, he does not have the quick twitch athleticism of the truly elite athletes. Though he often does not need to utilize his top speed, he looks to use his athleticism to keep plays alive and look for passes downfield. Once that is not an option, though, he uses his solid size (6'2", 210 lbs) to fight for extra yards on runs that won't require him to take a big hit. I wish he were a bit more flexible in his hips, though. While Klubnik has a big arm, when on off footing, he struggles to generate the necessary torque on his throws to generate the power necessary to be accurate.
Data and Tape Analysis
If you are unfamiliar with my QB radar charts, you can find more information here
The biggest thing that jumped out on the film is also shown in the chart above. You can't catch it for them. While Klubnik did not exhibit any remarkable accuracy in his 2025 season, his teammates consistently let him down. Clemson receivers had 25 drops on the year, and his offensive line allowed him to be the 29th most pressured QB in all of college football, even though he missed a game against SMU.
Not only that, but the entire offensive architecture was overly simplistic, mostly because of that bad offensive line. Screens galore tried to help the abysmal pass blocking and a 105th ranked nationally run offense. When the opportunity to have a clean dropback showed up, Klubnik was often looking at receivers who were totally blanketed in coverage, and when they were open enough to throw it, drops. Watching everything, it was not surprising at all to see how poor Clemson was against expectations last year.
This article is not about the disappointing season in the Upstate; it is about Cade Klubnik's performance within it. And how did he manage in this cursed offense? Pretty well, actually.
I really like Klubnik's game. There is not a single wow trait, but there is also nothing worse than a B. The worst part of his game was mentioned in my prospect profile, but his off-platform ability is really poor. However, I think that could improve, and he constantly mitigates it with great pocket awareness and an ability to extend plays. He has all the arm strength you would want out of a prospect, even if he only showed off the true power of it on a few throws. He can absolutely laser a ball into a tight window if needed, and any QB who can throw 50 air yards off their back foot with a defender in their face has an NFL caliber arm.
His decision making is a tick slow for my liking, while leaving reads at the appropriate time, the next decision to throw or run can lead to closing windows a little more than you would like. He also makes the easy plays look easy, something way less common than you would hope.
Lastly, he is a great performer under pressure. As said before, he does a great job staying alive, but he also is not afraid to stick in the pocket and deliver a throw downfield. PFF graded him out as the 10th best QB under pressure last year in all of college football, and that was a carryover from his great performance in 2024.
Grade and Outlook
I think that a lot of the concern about Klubnik is way overblown. He might not be the game changing QB that other analysts and I thought he might be, as he did not improve as much as expected in his last year, but that does not take away from his great body of work. At the end of the day, Klubnik is a P4 starter with 40 career starts who, while not wowing in any individual trait, does not disappoint either. If he ends up on a team like the Rams, where he can sit behind Stafford for a year, or even goes early in the 2nd to a place like the Jets, I think Klubnik could really surprise people who wrote him off once Clemson started losing.
Grade: 6.4 (Late 1st)
