D.J. Uiagalelei Clemson debut gives fans a sneak-peek at Trevor Lawrence’s successor

D.J. Uiagalelei takes over for Trevor Lawrence at Clemson football in 2021.

Trevor Lawrence may be Clemson football’s present, but D.J. Uiagalelei is its future.

Once the game was well out of hand with a certain Clemson Tigers victory over the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, we saw Uiagalelei make his ACC debut. Though he only completed 2-of-3 passes for 16 yards and had one rush for three yards, it was still valuable experience for the next starting quarterback of Clemson. It will be his job next season once Lawrence is playing in the NFL.

D.J. Uiagalelei will end up playing more this season than you’d expect.

While Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney will want his star quarterback to put up his numbers so that he can win the first Heisman Trophy in school history before becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Clemson will be blowing out most teams it faces this season. That means more mop-up opportunities for Uiagalelei to play and get better ahead of next year.

There are three huge advantages Uiagalelei has in this one-of-a-kind college football season he couldn’t have otherwise. The first is this season will not count towards his or any other player’s eligibility. So if he plays in five games this season, his redshirt is not getting burned out of rampant negligence. How do you think Kelly Bryant feels about all this now?

The second huge advantage for him is he’s backing up arguably the best player in program history, although Deshaun Watson still holds that title right now. He’s going to get better watching Lawrence go to work each and every Saturday and backing him up in practice. With large second-half leads, look for Uiagalelei and fellow freshman Taisun Phommachanh to get some work.

And finally, the other big thing he’s got going for them is 10 of the 11 teams Clemson will face this regular season will be ACC teams. While the ACC is not the SEC, Uiagalelei will get more opportunities to play against better Power 5 competition than he would in any other season serving as a Heisman Trophy frontrunner’s backup. It’s a win-win-win situation for him.

Though it wasn’t much, it was still great to see Uiagalelei get some run on Saturday night.

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