Clemson Football: The Complicated Case of DJ Uiagalelei

Clemson’s offense plays well, and DJU plays poorly

As we said before, many Tiger fans are rooting for DJU, and they hope he plays well enough that he gets a legitimate shot at the NFL. More than likely, if you ask those same fans if they could choose only one – either Clemson plays well or DJU plays well – most of them would choose Clemson, and this is the scenario that would represent the second-least amount of anxiety in Tiger Nation.

It would provide a bit of closure for those fans who have wondered if DJU truly was a below-average player despite his recruiting ranking, or if Clemson’s staff had simply done a poor job of managing him.

As noted before, DJU is a good guy, so seeing his once-promising football career hanging on its last thread would sadden many, but not as much as seeing Clemson’s offense continue to struggle.

This scenario would provide a bit of closure for both Elliott and Streeter, at least from the perspective that they weren’t the only ones who weren’t able to make it work with DJU. They would still have to share the criticism, along with Swinney, of a mistaken evaluation, but if you were able to put head coaches and offensive coordinators in Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth, most of them would admit they’d have made the same mistake. All of the recruiting services would have missed on DJU too. Clemson’s swing and miss was simply bigger.