He shredded teams his junior season. Absolutely shredded them. He was fantastic at ND, but he acquired the 'doesn't know how to win' tag because he didn't play MLB as well as QB. That D was fuging awful.
Production wise, yes, but it isn't like the competition was that great and he had some fantastic talent surrounding him in Floyd, Tate, and Rudolph. I don't care if he didn't win or not. Watching him play though, I never came away impressed. He looked very good on the underneath stuff but failed to ever push the ball down the field with much velocity behind his throws. Very concerning because velocity is critical. If that area of your game is well below average, the best you can become is a Chad Pennington and that is assuming you are anywhere near as accurate as him. And even with Pennington, his offenses were always limited and stood very little chance in the postseason (see: '08).
Clausen just doesn't have an NFL arm. That is why you see him having such an awkward and uncomfortable throwing motion because he is trying to pull everything into his throws. But they continually sail, thus making him feel as if he has to restrict his game to the short area stuff. And when defenses know this, they begin to push their DBs up further and play primarily in the short area making it harder for the offense to do what they want. NFL teams knew this before the draft. That is why Clausen fell to the mid 2nd round and plenty of teams with needs at QB passed on him. His skillset is below average for an NFL QB and he doesn't seem to have the elite decision making or elite accuracy to make up for it.
It just really irks me when people say that he wasn't given a fair shake and act as if he doesn't deserve majority blame. Sure, his coaches were poor. But that doesn't change the fact he was still making pathetic decisions, pathetic throws, and didn't show he had the velocity to make the throw on the out, slant, 9, etc. routes. I wish him the best. But I don't think he has any future in the NFL as a starter.