Clayton
Tune.
Clayton
Tune.
Houston· 6'3"· 220 lb· 4.64s 40
"Tune left Houston with 104 touchdown passes and nearly 12,000 yards, and the whole question was whether a five-year starter in a spread offense had been producing or simply accumulating."Pre-draft read
Tune operated an Air Raid-derived spread offense with a full-field passing menu, and he is comfortable working the middle of the field from the pocket. The arm is above average without being special: he can drive the deep dig and the seam throw, and he throws with anticipation on timing concepts he has seen thousands of times.
The second dimension is his legs. He is not a designed-run quarterback in the modern sense, but he ran for 547 yards and five scores as a senior on scrambles and zone-read keepers, and he moves the pocket well enough to extend plays. What defines the tape either way is aggression. He will throw into windows other quarterbacks refuse, which produced both the 40-touchdown senior year and 41 career interceptions.
Spread RPO passing and designed QB run concepts with multiple reads and quick-game elements, similar to what Kyler Murray ran in Arizona.
Year 1 could see him in a backup role, but his ceiling could be that of a starting QB within a spread RPO system.
A West Coast offense with a heavy emphasis on timing throws from under center would diminish his strengths.
Tune's athleticism and experience in an RPO-heavy system make him a good fit for Arizona's offensive philosophy.
Clayton Tune Senior Season Highlights - Houston QB
Clayton Tune || Houston Cougars Quarterback || 2021 Highlights
Clayton Tune || Houston Highlights || NFL Draft 2023
Five years of starting experience is the headline. Tune threw 1,499 passes at Houston, completed 956 of them for 11,996 yards, and finished with 104 touchdowns against 41 interceptions, capped by a senior season of 4,074 yards and 40 scores. That volume matters — few quarterbacks in the class had seen as many coverages or taken as many hits.
The traits underneath are workable. He is accurate to the intermediate levels, he throws with timing on rhythm concepts, and he is tough in the pocket. He processes the first and second read cleanly against pressure looks he has repped, and he adds enough with his legs to keep an offense on schedule when a play breaks down.
What is missing is separation. The arm does not create windows that are not already there, the ball loses velocity when his base is compromised, and the decision-making runs hot — his interception rate never dropped meaningfully across five seasons, even as the offense got better around him. In the NFL, the throws he squeezes in college become turnovers. That combination profiles as a backup: a smart, experienced quarterback who can run a game plan for a week or two, but whose margin for error is too thin to start.
- 01
Experience
Five seasons and 1,499 college attempts, giving him a mental catalogue of coverages that few Day 3 quarterbacks bring with them.
- 02
Intermediate accuracy
Throws the deep dig and seam route with anticipation and timing, hitting receivers in stride between the numbers.
- 03
Production
11,996 passing yards and 104 touchdowns, including a senior year of 4,074 yards and 40 scores against increasing defensive attention.
- 04
Mobility
1,251 career rushing yards and 15 touchdowns on scrambles and keepers, enough movement to extend plays and convert on third down.
- 05
Pocket toughness
Delivers with defenders arriving and takes hits to complete throws rather than bailing early from a clean pocket.
- 01
Turnover volume
Forty-one career interceptions and a rate that never improved, the product of aggression his arm cannot always justify.
- 02
Arm ceiling
Average NFL velocity that limits the boundary throws and lets defenders close on outbreaking routes late in the down.
- 03
Base under pressure
Ball speed and accuracy fall off sharply when his lower half is compromised, producing errant throws off platform.
- 04
Scheme translation
The spread system simplified his reads, and the full-field progression work required in the NFL was largely untested.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.64sp50
- Vertical
- 37.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 122inp50
- Three-cone
- 6.89sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.25sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Cmp | Att | Yds | TD | Int |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Houston | 5 | 59 | 117 | 795 | 8 | 2 |
| 2019 | Houston | 7 | 106 | 179 | 1533 | 11 | 9 |
| 2020 | Houston | 8 | 170 | 285 | 2048 | 15 | 10 |
| 2021 | Houston | 14 | 287 | 421 | 3546 | 30 | 10 |
| 2022 | Houston | 13 | 334 | 497 | 4074 | 40 | 10 |
| Career | — | 47 | 956 | 1499 | 11996 | 104 | 41 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A quick-processing spread product who lives as a QB2 and produces volume with turnover risk when he plays.
The best case is a durable, well-liked backup who can start a stretch of games without sinking an offense.
A preseason performer who cycles through practice squads because the arm and decision-making do not survive live NFL defenses.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Arizona drafted him in the fifth round and used him exactly as a backup, giving him spot work across 13 games over two seasons, including an emergency start in his rookie year that went badly enough to settle the question of whether the arm could carry a game plan. He was waived at the 2025 roster cuts, signed to Green Bay's practice squad, and appeared in two games there — including a Week 18 start when the club rested its starters — before being released in January 2026. He tried out for Houston at rookie minicamp that May.
The evaluation was accurate down to the role. Volume production in a spread offense is not the same as NFL readiness, and the pieces that were supposed to keep him employed — experience, toughness, intermediate accuracy — have kept him employed while the ceiling questions have kept him from ever competing for a job. He is a fifth-round quarterback who has been on four rosters in four years, which is what the fifth round is for. Nobody misjudged him; the market simply confirmed the grade.