Quarterback Clayton Tune achieved his childhood dream on Saturday afternoon when he received a phone call from the Arizona Cardinals.
When the caller ID popped up with the team’s name, Tune took his phone and told everybody around him to quiet down. With the 139th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, the Arizona Cardinals selected Tune as their team’s newest quarterback.
“I had a crazy, crazy moment, so it was really special,” Tune told Gallery Sports via a phone interview on Saturday.
Tune had talked with the Cardinals a couple of times leading up to the draft, including at the NFL Draft Combine in Indianapolis, he said.
The Carrollton native’s connection with Arizona went back even further to January when he was able to build a relationship with the Cardinals’ quarterbacks coach Israel Woolfork at the Senior Bowl. Woolfork was Tune’s quarterbacks’ coach at the event.
Now heading to Arizona, Tune knows he is joining a quarterback room led by Kyler Murray, who is recovering from surgery on his knee after suffering a torn ACL during the 2022 season, Colt McCoy, and David Blough. Former Houston Texans quarterback Jeff Driskel is also on the roster.
For Tune, his mindset in joining the new team is to get to work.
“They got a good room of quarterbacks,” Tune said. “Just excited to get in there and compete and learn from those guys. Getting in there and putting my best foot forward.”
Tune believes his five seasons with the Houston Cougars football team have more than prepared him for the NFL because of everything he experienced.
As a true freshman, Tune was thrust into the position to be a starter following D’Eriq King’s torn meniscus injury late in the 2018 season. The following year, Tune was again put in the position to be the starter when King redshirted the 2019 season.
In 2020, with King no longer on the program, Tune was given the reins of Houston’s starting job, but that season was filled with stops and starts caused by COVID-19 cancellations. UH did not play its first game until October of that season.
The 2021 year saw Tune get his first full campaign as the team’s starter. Tune led UH to a 12-2 record and overcame a four-interception opening-week performance against Texas Tech by posting a 30-passing touchdown season. Tune threw just six interceptions the rest of the year.
Tune picked up his level of play once again in 2022 as a senior. He increased his passing touchdowns to 40 for the season, which set an American Athletic Conference single-season record.
“I had a lot of success there, but also a lot of adversity that I feel like prepared me for the next level,” Tune said. “Obviously playing under Dana [Holgorsen], obviously a very smart offensive mind, [I’m] just excited to get in there and learn and translate everything that I have learned from Houston.”
For Arizona fans that may not know what Tune is about, the fourth-most winningest quarterback in UH history emphasized two attributes he believes will help him at the next level.
“They’re getting a competitor and someone that is going to come in and work every day. Learn, and be someone that is going to go to battle and be a warrior for them,” Tune said. “If you look at my track record in Houston, I played through injury.
“I would say I am the toughest guy in this draft, you know, physically and mentally. And you know, [I’m] just going to go to battle for them each and every day, so that is what they are getting in me.”