When Clemson’s veteran safety Andrew Mukuba entered his name in the transfer portal in early December, all eyes looked at one location. Texas, in the same city where Mukuba lived throughout his upbringing, was quickly chosen by the safety less than two weeks after entering the portal. Eight months later, Mukuba had some choice words for the Tigers staff and program, now repping a different type of orange on the forty acres
The Austin native was one of the Texas Longhorns’ top recruiting targets in the class of 2021, even receiving a crystal ball prediction in favor of Texas from 247’s Nick Harris. Unfortunately for the Longhorns, the recruiting prowess of Steve Sarkisian and his staff were not there to secure his commitment, and Mukuba instead chose to play for Dabo Swinney and defensive coordinator Brent Venables in South Carolina.
Unfortunately for Mukuba, Venables left for the head coach job in Oklahoma just a year after the safety stepped on campus. Suddenly one of his top recruiters, and motivations to leave his home state, was out of the picture in Clemson.
Now in Austin, Mukuba went onto the Behind The Facemask podcast recently to talk about his transfer and what ultimately led him back to Austin.
“I just felt like I wasn’t really getting better,” Mukuba said about his time at Clemson. “I wasn’t being pushed enough to where I could reach my potential, my peak. I feel like the program wasn’t where it needed to be for me and the whole team to be successful.”
It’s rare to see that candid of a response from a player regarding their former school, especially one that held him for three seasons and saw him become one of the best safeties in the ACC. In his first year at Clemson, Mukuba was a Freshman All-American and the ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year, racking up notable accolades despite not being a top-10 safety in the 2021 class.
Ultimately, though, Mukuba didn’t do much with his early hype in the ACC. The safety added seven more tackles in his sophomore season, but battled injury in his junior year and never eclipsed the 60 tackle point in either of his three seasons. He only recorded one interception in three years at Clemson, and his freshman year saw the most amount of pass deflected in any of the three seasons.
“I feel like my sophomore year was kind of rough,” Mukuba said. “I was just going through a lot of things my sophomore year and didn’t play my best football. I feel like that impacted me a lot.”
Mukuba’s progression problems could be due to many reasons. He struggled with injury, lost a defensive coordinator, and alluded to some behind the scenes struggles that were not known to the public. Whether it was his fault, the staff’s fault, or just bad luck, the safety did not turn into what many thought would be the best safety in the nation by this point in his career.
Luckily for Mukuba, Texas is a fresh start. The Longhorns have struggled in the secondary the last two seasons, but a newly reloaded room with him, freshman phenom Xavier Filsame, and another year of progression for Derek Williams Jr. and Michael Taaffe should see a major uptick in quality in the final level of coverage.
“Texas is where it’s supposed to be at now,” Mukuba said. “I’m back home, close to the family. So everything just kind of played into my favor with the whole process.”
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