Cade Klubnik's college football dream fueled by watching older brother

Cade (right) is proud of what his brother Reed (left) accomplished at Yale.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Jul 31 07:00:13 GMT-04:00 2023

CHARLOTTE – Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik has had plenty of players to look up to throughout his football career, but perhaps none have had the impact on his life like his older brother Reed.

Reed Klubnik played at Austin (TX) Westlake ahead of his younger brother and had offers to compete at several schools but chose to join Yale's football team. Reed put together a solid career for the Bulldogs, including a 2018 season that saw him earn first-team All-New England honors. He led the Bulldogs with 73 catches and 1,143 yards. He was fifth among all FCS players with 114.3 yards per game, finishing seventh in receptions (7.3) and ninth in total receiving yards.

Cade looked at his older brother with the pride and adoration many younger brothers have for their siblings.

“(Reed is) that somebody that I've always looked up to my entire life,” Cade told TigerNet last week. “My dream my whole life was to play college football. It really was a dream my whole life was to play college football. It really was. If you could go tell the eight-year-old me that I was playing college football at Clemson, that'd be pretty cool. But when Reed went and played college football, it turned into a goal of mine.”

It didn’t take long for Cade to understand the sacrifice it takes to play college football.

“I saw that somebody that I actually know went and did it, and that, that was super inspirational to me,” Cade said. “I saw his work ethic and what he did to get where he was and to where I wanted to be. I wanted to go do that and just looking up to him; I remember just going to the games and stuff like that, going to Westlake games and watching him, and he was kind of living my dream out. So that was always really cool for me.”

Reed started his career at quarterback.

“I always wanted to be a quarterback,” Cade said with a smile. “He actually used to play quarterback, and then a guy named Sam Ehlinger (former Texas Longhorns starting QB), who you might know about, came, and they were competing. My brother was going into his junior year and Sam was going into his sophomore year. They’re competing to be the starting quarterback, and then it ends up being Sam. But Reed was great. He was like, ‘Oh, I will go play receiver,' which doesn’t happen very often. So he ended up switching to receiver for two years.”

Reed caught 75 passes his junior season and then 77 his senior season. Over his two seasons as a high school receiver, he caught 152 passes for 2,147 yards and 23 touchdowns. Not bad for a former quarterback.

“He wound up being the leading receiver and setting records,” Cade said. “And then he went on and had some offers, and wound up getting recruited by Chad Morris (at SMU), which is pretty ironic. So just looking up to him, it’s been huge for me, and it’s been for him to be able to come to a few games.”