“I wasn’t very good my sophomore year, but I just stuck with it. And what Clemson’s done with me is develop me. They’ve got me better.” The 2025 Heisman narrative was set: On corner A, you had SEC royalty, Texas’s Arch Manning. Corner B? Well, an underdog but deserving candidate, Garrett Nussmeier. But then something changed. An ACC dynasty with a 10-win haul 2024 campaign put their knight on the board, and suddenly the college football world had one name on their lips: Cade Klubnik.

“I don’t see how he’s not there,” Heisman trophy voter David Pollack declared, putting his full credibility on the line. “I think Cade Klubnik will be in the Heisman conversation next year. That’s how good I think he is.” This isn’t just offseason chatter; this is a verdict based on facts. 3.6k yards campaign with an astonishing 36-6 touchdown-interception ratio. Even if we look past the stats, Klubnik’s sheer change in skill is something the SEC should fear. Take the Texas game. Despite Clemson losing the playoff battle, this kid went all out. 336 yards on his throws with a 3-touchdown game against a million-dollar Texas defense. If there is anyone, even remotely close to how Kirby Smart made Steve Sarkisian sweat in their 2 meetups, it’s Cade Klubnik.

But for Klubnik’s Heisman campaign to be more than a pipe dream, Dabo Swinney knows he needs to provide cover. This comes in the form of pure run game demolition. Enter certified killers that Pro Football Focus calls one of the most dangerous in the nation: Antonio Williams, Bryant Wesco Jr., and T.J. Moore. This is the “pick-your-poison” death squad that makes Klubnik’s Heisman campaign not just a possibility, but a clear and present danger to the rest of college football.

But the receivers are just the glamor of this operation; the true horror for opposing defenses lies in the mysterious evolution of Swinney’s coaching. Any Clemson fan would know that this Tigers offense had a governor on it. But now? Dabo is going all out. The HC is handing the keys to a system not built just for Klubnik, but around him.

Create Chaos: that is the new Clemson mantra. If the D-line dares to drop seven or eight men into coverage to contain the “death squad,” they are signing their own death warrant. Because that’s when Klubnik unleashes his hidden blade: his legs.

Pass game? Check. Run game? Check. Cade Klubnik Heisman frontrunner? Check.

Quietly gnashing teams for 500 yards and 7 touchdowns, Cade’s run game was a surprise feast for every Clemson fan. This added advantage makes closing down Clemson’s offense a tough task. What will you even do? Spy the quarterback, and Antonio Williams gets a one-on-one matchup he will win 10 times out of 10. Play coverage, and watch Klubnik slice through your front for a game-breaking first down.

And all of this, bundled with the fact that Cade’s going on a whole “self-assessment” trip, really pours the fuel into Pollack’s Klubnik Heisman remark. “I think just being able to get through my reads faster, honestly, just being in the system another year, you know. It’s not a guessing game… escaping when I need to and not whenever, you know, not run from ghosts is kind of a term that we say is when I’m sitting back in their pocket and you know, I’ve got time back there, and sometimes I’ll just run too early and I got a great pocket,” the QB had confessed on Andy & Ari.

Keeping all of this in mind, we only have one final thing to say: the race for the Heisman doesn’t go through the SEC anymore; it goes through Death Valley, and the trophy already has a Tiger Paw print on it.