CORVALLIS, Ore. — DJ Uiagalelei picked Oregon State as his transfer destination, sight unseen, primarily because of an NFL-style offense that puts great responsibility on its quarterbacks.
Despite the demanding scheme, Uiagalelei, who started most of the past two seasons at Clemson, has felt even more liberated on the practice field this spring.
“I wanted to go somewhere where the scheme is going to fit me,” Uiagalelei told ESPN. “I wanted to go somewhere where they’re going to let me be who I am as a player, let me play free, and let me go out there and just cut it loose. Just somewhere where I can do what I wanted to do.”
Uiagalelei, ESPN’s top-rated pocket passer in the 2020 recruiting class, entered the transfer portal Dec. 5 and selected Oregon State 18 days later without visiting campus. Viewed as the next elite Clemson quarterback following Trevor Lawrence and Deshaun Watson, Uiagalelei went 22-6 as the Tigers’ starter and showed improvement last season after a turbulent 2021 campaign, but was replaced by freshman Cade Klubnik early in the ACC championship.
The 6-foot-4, 251-pound Uiagalelei sought a return to the West Coast, closer to his home in Southern California. He extensively researched Oregon State’s offense, which had elements that he felt could best prepare him for an NFL career. Uiagalelei also noted the successful transfers of quarterbacks such as Will Levis, who left Penn State for Kentucky and could be a top-10 pick in next week’s NFL draft.
“I wanted to be able to do play-action, throw a lot of deep balls, deep posts, scheme-wise, a little bit more complex than I was doing at Clemson, a little more NFL-style,” Uiagalelei said. “I looked at Will Levis. A lot of people have him going first round, because he’s a good player, but also because he played in a pro-style system.”
Uiagalelei is competing this spring with redshirt sophomore Ben Gulbranson and freshman Aidan Chiles. Gulbranson went 7-1 as Oregon State’s starter as the team went 10-3 and finished No. 17 nationally. But the Beavers also ranked 104th in passing and wanted to add quarterback options. All three players worked with the first-team offense in Thursday’s practice in advance of Saturday’s spring game.
Coach Jonathan Smith praised Uiagalelei’s approach toward learning the offense and connecting with his new teammates. Uiagalelei hasn’t led an offense that huddles since the seventh grade.
“He’s been great, early on not trying to be showy or the face of the program from the get-go, but just fitting in with the guys,” Smith told ESPN. “He’s in this building every day, trying to digest. This is a new system. It’s drastically different from what he was doing, so it’s taken him reps to get comfortable with the calls, changing the play at the line of scrimmage, reading the signal, protections.
“From Day 1 to where he’s at now, it’s night and day.”
Uiagalelei has adjusted well to Corvallis, a bigger college town than Clemson and one that offers more places to go and greater anonymity. He often sees his younger brother, Matayo, a freshman defensive end at Oregon, a 50-minute drive from Oregon State’s campus.
“It’s something different from Clemson where every player, they recognize you, come up to you, ask you for a picture,” Uiagalelei said. “Here, it’s nice, I just walk around, me and my girlfriend, go eat, no one knows who I am. It’s great.”
Uiagalelei spoke glowingly of his time at Clemson and the friendships he built with Bryan Bresee, R.J. Mickens, Tyler Venables and others. He hopes to apply everything that happened at Clemson — good and bad — to his next chapter at Oregon State.
“The biggest thing is if you don’t learn from your losses, you don’t turn that ‘L’ into a ‘W,’ then what’s the point?” he said. “Everything in life that you go through, it’s a lesson.”