Before he takes the field for a Week 1 showdown against LSU, Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik addressed the rumor that he was recently injured in a car accident.
“I was sitting at home just hanging out with my roommates and my mom calls me crying,” Klubnik, 21, told reporters on Wednesday, August 27. “I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’ She was just tearing up, seeing if I’m OK. I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m fine. What’s going on?’’ She saw that post that dude, or whoever, posted.”
A post on Clemson fan site TigerNet over the weekend said that Klubnik was involved in a car wreck and he “couldn’t move his arm or shoulder.”
Klubnik said his mother Kim’s panicked phone call was “the first thing I heard of it.” The quarterback said he received other concerned texts and phone calls checking on him after the initial call from his mom.
“I don’t know who it was, but man, just shame on them for the pain that they had to put people I love through,” Cade said of the post. “I’m not really interested in talking about it anymore. But it was a messed up joke. But I’m OK.”
Cade’s mother first refuted the message board rumor, which has since been deleted, earlier this week.
“Thankfully, it is fake news,” Kim told CBS Sports. “Cade is fine!”
Kim added, “My heart has not stopped racing since someone shared the story with me. How can someone be so cruel?”
A preseason All-American and one of the early favorites to win the Heisman Trophy as college football’s best player, Klubnik has come a long way since his sophomore season when perennial national title contender Clemson finished an underwhelming 9-4.
“Everybody kind of told me I sucked, and wasn’t very good,” Klubnik told the Associated Press earlier this month. “A lot of people wanted me out of Clemson.”
Despite the hate, Clemson head coach, Dabo Swinney, told Klubnik he still believed in him.
“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.’”
Swinney remembered the moment well, saying he knew keeping Klubnik as the team’s starting quarterback was going to receive plenty of “criticism.”
“I just knew there was going to be a lot of noise,” Swinney, 55, told the Associated Press. “He’s a young person and I just felt like it was important that I let him know 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.”
#4 Clemson hosts #9 LSU on Saturday, August 30 at 7:30 pm ET on ABC.
