Re: We haven't seen what Cade can actually do.

People seem to have short memories around here.

I remember when Trevor replaced Bryant. It was way too late, but it still happened. His first few times in, he made some rookie mistakes. He didn't look like the superstar he is. It's called being a freshman that hasn't spent enough time with the 1s.

Cade hasn't had a chance to grind with the first stringers day in and day out in practice. He doesn't know where they're going to be without looking. He doesn't know how reliable calls on the line will be. He doesn't know if the receiver is going to make the right read on the route. All of those things and more take reps in practice to develop so that when you're in the game, you just play by instinct and reaction based on all the practice and preparation you've done up until then. Cade doesn't have that advantage.

Whether or not you think Cade should start, it is absolutely dumb to judge his performance this year as if he were the starter, almost as dumb as putting him in on the 7 yard line and pulling him immediately after a bad throw on a naked bootleg.

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Exactly.

Nov 7, 2022, 5:36 AM

We have no idea.

Coaches, on the other hand, see him in practice every day. They talk to him every day. They have a pretty good idea how good he is compared to DJ at this point in time, and how ready he is. Coaches aren't going to put him in just to see what happens, or to see whether or not the fans approve; rather they make that determination totally irrespective of what fans think or want. It's always that way, at every school, with every coach, and always will be. No matter how bad DJ has struggled this year, it doesn't follow that Cade must be better, or that he couldn't possibly be any worse, because he may not be any better, and he may indeed be worse, and coaches don't owe it to us or anybody else to prove it.

Now, they may put Cade in at some point, and Cade may shine. If they do, I hope he does. That would not mean, however, that he has been the best all along, or that he has been ready. It's a growing and learning process for Cade, and it's insane to think that coaches would be willing to lose games out of some kind of loyalty to DJ. All of our coaches, including Dabo, want to win as bad or worse than we do.

I hope Cade turns out to be the next great Clemson QB; that may be the case. Something tells me he hasn't quite been ready up to this point. If DJ continues to struggle, and Cade still does not play, the question for me will not be "Why is Dabo so stubbornly loyal to DJ?"; rather it will be "Why doesn't a college football program the stature of Clemson's have a better QB, or at least a back up who can come in and spell the starter in short stretches without losing games? How did our QB situation get in this shape? Was it a failure in recruiting through talent evaluation, or was it a failure to develop the talent?". I realize that most schools have a drop off from starter to 2nd string QB. The problem with that is, most schools don't have 2 or 3 5-star, elite recruited QBs on the team who would normally be expected to be pretty good QBs. I'm thinking that's probably more the case for us right now. Why aren't we getting better, more consistent QB play, and why do we have no quality depth?

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"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
- H. L. Mencken

We haven't seen what Cade can actually do.

And call decent plays for him to work with.***